_{Updated August 16th, 2026}

Very obviously, the Sagamore Hotel isn’t entirely gone; the building itself yet remains, albeit altered irrevocably through decades of residency, renames, renovations and resales. If one wants to be poetic and speak of the soul of a building, there’s a good argument that the Sagamore qua Sagamore died and its unspectacular corpse has been shambling on these many decades. But it’s still a pretty incredible building, all told.

That’s neither heads nor tails for my purposes, however. The Sagamore Hotel is actually a secondary character in this post, one whose previous absence and potential presence make for the most interest; what was here before the Sagamore, what had to make way for it, and how did that go down?

It’s a question I inevitably think whenever I see a large enough building; it’s unlikely that a large enough empty plot for the construction of such a magnificent edifice would exist in the densest, most fashionable part of 1920s Rochester. Something always makes way for the new construction.

So let’s go to the plat map of 1918, seven years before the official opening of the Sagamore Hotel:

The above map shows all the plots of land that would be necessary for the construction of the Sagamore Hotel, its parking, its drives, and other ancillary constructs. Any structures on the properties at this time would have to be destroyed or moved. This included five frame houses along Lawn Street, and four brick houses and buildings along East Avenue.

Many of these were moved; an unidentified member of the Lawn Street host was moved by a Mrs. C. L. Wilson to Kodak Park to serve as a sort of “guest house”; we’ll discuss more on her strange plans later on. Another unidentified Lawn Street house was apparently dragged to the corner of Frost Avenue and Epworth Street by Francis X. Yeoman [head of excavation for the Sagamore construction] and William H. Clark, which seems like an awful long way.

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Planning the Sagamore

This whole shuffle began largely because of two men, William Bausch, vice-president of Bausch & Lomb, and James G. Comerford, vice-president of the Fahy Market.

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No. 105 East Avenue

No. 105 East Avenue, marked “vacant” in the above directory, can be seen as the turreted house in the foreground of the below photograph:

This property was owned by James G. Comerford before his part in the enterprise to erect the Sagamore apartment hotel. It was also known as the “Cooper residence” due to previously being the home of John Cooper, proprietor of a drug store at North Clinton and East Main, who died in his shop in January 1898.

Right off the bat, difficulties arose as a woman, Mrs. C. L. Wilson, who had obtained use of the house for ostensibly charitable purposes presently refused to relinquish the keys to Comerford. The story only grows stranger as her unusual history within Rochester is suddenly given intense public scrutiny.

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Unfortunately, details were sparse enough that I was unable to find the exact location the Kodak Park “guest house” would have been built. It was adjacent to the Y.M.C.A/Knights of Columbus hut which was used by the School of Air Photography, which I was able to find photographs of but no specific location within Kodak Park. It may have been omitted from plat maps as other buildings on the Kodak Park site were. However, according to an article advertising materials from the dismantled hut in 1919, the hut was definitely along Lake Avenue.

All I could find for certain is that they were desperately in need of new records for their Victrola.

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So Mrs. Wilson’s confounding influence ended with a self-imposed exile; a whimper, not a bang. James G. Comerford was now free to do with No. 105 East Avenue as he liked. In the end, it would be torn down to make way for the Sagamore.

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More Land Obtained

J. G. Comerford acquired a large parcel to the west of Christ Episcopal Church in 1920, upon which sat several different buildings. He made plans to move one: the Webb building at No. 127 East Avenue, a brick two-story structure. This would be the first brick building ever moved in Rochester.

Another building wasn’t so lucky: the home of the late John H. Hill at No. 131 East Avenue. Hill, a Scottish immigrant who operated a hardware store at No. 17 East Main Street, was struck by a wagon while walking on that same street; complications from a broken hip and other injuries caused his death in 1906. His widow would live in the house at No. 131 East Avenue until her own passing in spring of 1919, at which point the property was claimed by Comerford.

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Moving the Webb Building

One of the most dramatic removals from the site was that of the Webb building, a two-story brick commercial building at the foot of Swan Street. Being neither very old nor useless, the Webb building was selected for an ambitious removal onto the plot immediately to its southeast.

The company hired to move the Webb building was the John Eichleay, Jr. Company of Pittsburgh, which had undertaken jobs in Rochester before; the “sawing in half” of the George Eastman House to accommodate a new grand pipe organ, and moving the office building of Eastman’s physician Dr. Edward Mulligan from Gibbs Street to Swan Street.

The house peeking into frame at extreme left in the photo above was No. 131 East Avenue, the home of the late John Hercles Hill, and his widow who died 1919.

The Automobile Club of Rochester took over the Webb building in 1925:

The Automobile Club gave the Webb Building what appears to be a green-and-gold color scheme and the odd addition of a pointed multifoil arch doorway, as seen in the postcard below:

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The MacMaster Building

A few years after the Webb building was moved, in 1924, the MacMaster building was constructed to its immediate east, at No. 135 East Avenue:

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The Sagamore

The Sagamore hotel opened its doors in 1921; bedecked with innovative and luxurious features and fixtures for the more well-to-do renters in Rochester, it was the stylish new place to live.

You can see all the buildings discussed in this article in the above postcard, plus a third one added-in by the artist which I call the Erratum Building. The Erratum Building is three stories high, apparently concrete block in construction, and at the time of this portrayal painted green with a white cornice and window trim. It also stands directly in the yard of the Christ Church, taking up a whole lot of space.

The tall roof of the Sagamore provided some enticing new views of the area as shown above; one of the more exciting shots is to the north, where buildings on the west side of Gibbs Street are visible, some of which I discussed in another entry.

Sadly, after his large part in the enterprise and serving as president of the Sagamore, James G. Comerford would die only four years after the hotel’s completion, in 1925.

Returning to the Sagamore: come 1944 the hotel received a new name, Hotel Sheraton, in-lining it with other hotels under the Sheraton Hotel Corporation, which held a large percentage of stock in the Sagamore’s operation.

The building would once again receive a change in appellation when a group purchased it from Sheraton, renaming it 111 East Ave and extensively renovating the building:

Which leaves us at today, over a century after the Sagamore Hotel first opened its doors. The building stands steadfast and beautiful over East Avenue, having been a home to innumerable people and businesses for the more than one hundred years it’s served its purpose. The buildings which once stood on its titanic footprint are less than a memory now, they are forgotten entirely, except by the archives of history, and by me–and now, by you.

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