North Tonawanda History Museum © The McLean Home

This exquisitely detailed house is a fine example of the Queen Anne style, painted in colors appropriate for its period. Above the massive Medina sandstone base a broad porch extends across the entire façade. The twin second story bays are capped by matching gables with recessed windows; these gables are in turn decorated with pediments carved in a manner suggestive of the Richardsonian Romanesque.

On the east side of the third floor is a sleeping porch, a rare survival from the period when there was great faith in the curative power of fresh air.

Inside the main entrance are two doors: one leads to a reception room, where visitors here on business would be met; the main entry leads into the grand stair hall. Unlike most staircases of the period, this one, after a few steps to a low landing, shoots straight up to the second floor. (There are actually three more floors above the first!) Note the fireplace with its mirror and carved surround; similar ones topped the other four mantels on the first floor, until the owner threw them out during the Depression. The fireplace in the living room dates to an early 20 th-century remodeling.

As was typical of the period, different woods were used in different rooms: here, the hall and dining rooms are oak and the reception and living rooms are redwood. Another remarkable survival in this house is the double pantries, with all the original cabinetry intact; there is even an original working copper sink!

The stable in the rear is original, but is not in its original location on the lot.

This house was built in 1891 for Edward Evans, who made his fortune in timber and real estate; he also helped to organize the earliest banks in the village. Very active in reform politics sand the temperance movement, Evans headed the local chapter of the Royal Templars of Temperance. This organization had been founded by the prominent Buffalo architect Cyrus K. Porter, and this is probably the reason that Evans chose Cyrus K. Porter & Son to design this house. It is said that Mrs. Nancy Evans gave considerable input into its design, including eight bedrooms for her eight children. One of their children married Paschal Smith Humphrey.

After Evans died in the late 1890s, lumberman Donald S. McLean moved in. Although he died in 1905, the house continued to be occupied by his widow and their unmarried daughter (both named Elizabeth ); the daughter lived to be well over 100!