Originally published July 2016
The Lamson House was built in 1899, at the turn of the century when the whole world was abuzz about what the great new millennium would bring. It was a time of grandeur, splendor and wonder. The house was designed by Sidney Badgley, a moderately famous architect who is best known for the many municipal and religious buildings he designed. You can still see many of his larger works in downtown Cleveland as he designed many of the churches you see there. They are easily spotted due to his signature 3 window grouping that you can see a significant number of buildings that he designed. The Lamson House itself has 2 of these window groupings that you can see on the front and the South facing side of the house.
Mr. Badgley’s work was not limited to municipal buildings and churches. He was also a prolific designer of houses. But sadly, even though Mr. Badgley designed nearly a hundred houses in his life time, a hundred years later only roughly ten of those houses are still standing. Of those ten, only about half are in good repair. The Lamson House is one of the last remaining examples of the types of beautiful homes he designed.
Mr. Badgley was very proud of the Lamson House design. He even included it in a “brag book” that he created to help sell his services. He thought it was a good example of the luxurious style of houses he could design for homeowners. If you look at many of Mr. Badgley’s works, you will see that he loved working in stone and creating buildings that soared above their neighbors.
The Lamson House is an example of a time when houses and other buildings were more than simply places we lived and worked. They were works of art. Beautiful things people like Sidney Badgley imagined, put on paper and then sat back as builders made his imagination real. Bedford is very fortunate to still have such a stunning example of this time period. And the Lamson house is not the only one like that in Bedford. Our city is chocked full of homes that have great historic value. There are not many communities in the Cleveland area that is able to make that kind of claim.