The house takes its name from Helen Houghton, who acquired it in l9l3 and gave it the appearance we know today. She did not build it, however, nor is this the first house on the site.

1793-1875

The property was originally owned by Charles Williamson, land agent for the Pulteney Associates. When Williamson laid out Geneva in 1793, he terminated Main Street a mile south of its origin (near Seneca Street) at Mile Point. A large plot of lakefront and interior land south of that was set aside as Pulteney property. Called Mile Point Farm, it extended from Mile Point to where Belhurst Castle and Snell Road now stand (Two Mile Point). Houghton House property was part of that historic estate.

At the head of Mile Point Farm, Williamson built an elegant mansion. Begun in 1796, Mile Point House was the first great house to be erected in Geneva. It was occupied only briefly, however, and later burned. In 1829 material from it was used to construct an adjacent house for Charles Williamson, Jr., now 839 South Main, opposite the drive to Houghton.

In 1832 Andrew Burns, an Irish immigrant, purchased an acre of lake property at Mile Point Farm and opened a brewery. Four years later, he bought 17 additional acres and built a house for himself and his Scottish wife, Mary. The Burns House stood roughly where Houghton House now is. It was the first house on the site.

Mary stayed on after Andrew's death. In 1852 she leased the property to the Rev. Dr. Thomas Reed, a former professor at Union College. Reed opened a boys school by or before 1856, when he purchased the property and added wings to the rear of the Burns house. He called the school "Walnut Hill," which continued as the estate name until the 1940s. Old maps suggest that a small orchard stood east of the house; perhaps they were walnut trees.

"Dr. Reed's Walnut Hill School" flourished. In 1862 it boasted 50 boarding students, additional day students, and five faculty members, including three professors of English and professors of music and German. The school was later enlarged by the construction of a second building. Though Walnut Hill School enjoyed a national reputation, it existed only until 1875.

1880-1913

The present house dates to 1880. It was built by William J. King, Jr., of Buffalo, who demolished the Burns-Reed structures to replace them with his up-to-date Victorian mansion. It was King who put in the present drive off South Main Street, but his carriage road curved around the east side of the house and then to a southern entrance where the South Gallery now stands. The front of King's house was the east side, facing the lake. The twin turrets originally on the third floor, and the verandah (also called a piazza then), were clearly designed with views of the lake and grounds in mind.

King added to the property, put up new service buildings and created a deer park. Larry Burns, landscape gardener of Glenwood Cemetery next door, laid out the grounds. In 1884, President Chester Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland both stopped to visit King at Walnut Hill while in the area.

After King's death (between 1904-08), his wife, Helen Gould, remarried and moved to London. She returned in 1912 to open the house as "King's Inn, a summer resort. Advertisements boasted of its amenities and lakeviews, its twelve guest rooms, and the modern convenience of both an automobile garage and a stable. King's Inn operated only the one summer; the following June it was purchased by Mrs. Houghton.

It is to Helen Hall Houghton that the house owes its name and its distinctive character. She was the widow of Charles F. Houghton, vice- president of Corning Glass, who developed red signal glass used by railroads for lanterns and signal lights. Through this marriage, Helen Hall acquired her wealth and her eventual position as a great-aunt of Katharine Hepburn.

1913-1943

In 1913, when she bought Walnut Hill, Mrs. Houghton was in fact Mrs. Vail. After her husband's death, she married Professor Charles Vail, a distinguished professor of English at Hobart College, and the librarian and registrar. In 1901, the year of their marriage, she bought as their house 624 South Main Street, now Sigma Phi fraternity. Three years later she purchased a "beach house" on Lochland Road, called "Fairfield" (now the American Legion home). She and her husband used it as a summer house. In l9l3, shortly after acquiring Walnut Hill, the South Main house was sold and the Vails moved to Fairfield, where they lived until 1916. It was only at that point, late in 1916 or perhaps in 1917, that they took up residence at Walnut Hill.

It must have taken the better part of 1913-16 to make the extensive changes that transformed King's estate into the house and grounds we know today. To Helen Houghton we owe the Carriage House and the Sunken Garden. She also increased the grounds from 13 to 50 acres, and rerouted the driveway to the west of the house. This turned the back of the house into the front entrance. There, she put in a porte-cochere, vestibule, reception hall and stairs. She removed the Victorian towers and enlarged the north side of the house and the southwest corner. And most significantly, she recast the interior.

The glory of Houghton House is its classical entrance hall. The Corinthian columns and pilasters, grand staircase and cut-away ceiling give the building its drama and elegance - but also its eccentricity. For nothing on the exterior prepares you for the interior. The outside of King's house is Victorian and eclectic, made up of medieval, Tudor, and Italianate elements; whereas the interior of Mrs. Houghton's house is classical, indeed, a deliberate return to Federal style. This style, which flourished between 1790-1830, forms the basis of Geneva's earliest buildings, including 624 South Main. In refashioning the interior of Houghton House, Mrs. Houghton modeled its high style on her previous home in town and the South Main Street tradition of Geneva's aristocratic past.

Professor Vail lived until 1921; Mrs. Houghton, until 1935. She remained at Walnut Hill until 1928, at which point her youngest daughter, MaBelle Houghton Plumb, and family, took up residence. The Plumbs left in 1934, and the house sat empty until 1943, when Mrs. Plumb and her three nephews gave it to the Colleges.

1943-present

Walnut Hill was immediately transformed into a William Smith dormitory. At the time, the Navy had taken over Blackwell, Comstock, and Miller to use for Navy V-12 training, and the need for student housing was urgent. Yet long after the World War II ended, until 1970, Houghton remained a coveted William Smith residence hall, accomodating 40 or more students and their own dining room.

In the fall of 1970, Houghton House became the Art and Music Center for the Colleges. After four years, the Music Department rejoined main campus, and the house became the home of the Art Department.

In this latest role, Houghton House honors two historical legacies. On the one hand, there is the tradition, begun in 1796 by Williamson, of stately homes at Mile Point Farm. Social prestige has always clung to this part of Geneva, as seen in some of the city's grandest houses: Williamson (Jr.) House, Clark-Best House (859 South Main), Nester Villa (now Geneva-on-the-Lake), Elizabeth Miller's house (now Lochland School), Belhurst Castle, Fairfield and, of course, Houghton House.

On the other hand, the site had ties to education even before Walnut Hill School. In 1821, when Bishop Hobart's plan to reopen Geneva Academy and make it a college was formally accepted, its location needed to be settled. The Bishop's choice of South Main Street was countered by Robert Troup, Williamson's successor, who offered to donate eight acres of Mile Point Farm. Hobart's plan meant raising money to buy a village lot, whereas Troup's offer was free. The trustees surely made the right decision. Yet, thanks to the Houghton family, Troup's vision of a college at Mile Point, situated on a large country estate, was finally realized in 1943.