John Carey, Jr., Gardener's Cottage

Although this stretch of Spring Street is characterized by relatively modest wood-frame residences built primarily for the working-class population of the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a few buildings distinguish themselves from their neighbors. This house, adjacent to the estate of New Yorker John Carey, Jr. (John Jacob Astor's son-in-law), is a distinctively ornamented two-and-one-half-story workman's cottage with high-pitched gables. The exterior is cloaked in fanciful screens, scalloped shingles, and lively trim work, some of which, like the spindle posts, dentil moldings, and clapboarding, may reflect an early Colonial Revival interest which is carried out in parts of the interior (not open to the public).