Courtesy of Matt Liverani
Welcome to another installment of White Pine: Then & Now!
In this week’s edition, we visit the home at 215 Ely Avenue in central Ely, built in 1915. There is no date on the original photo, but based on the clothing of the people in the photo, I’m guessing the photo was taken in the late teens or early twenties.
In the current photo, taken January 14, 2025, there are a few clues that this is the same home as in the original photo. First, is the window to the left of the door on the porch. The upper portion of the window is still in place. Next, looking at the trim in the upper right corner of the porch, called a bracket, it matches the brackets found along the length of the original porch. The third clue is the door on the left side of the house towards the back. At some point, the house was remodeled into three apartments, two on the main floor and the third on the second floor, and a number of changes were made to the exterior to accommodate that. Among the changes
made, the most obvious is the roof line. There was once a gabled roof over the two windows on the second fl oor (hard to tell since the top of the original photo has faded). The left half of the porch was enclosed and a stairwell from the porch to the second floor was installed, with the roof of the new stairwell altering the roof line of the porch as a consequence.
The door on the right side of the porch was added to be able to access the front apartment. I’m not sure if there are any shared features or not, but it seems likely that the three apartments share the kitchen and possibly the bathroom.
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