File:Delancey Partridge House, Seneca Falls, New York - 20230102.jpg

English: The Delancey Partridge House, 54 Cayuga Street, Seneca Falls, New York, January 2023. Built in 1875, this stately two-and-a-half-story mansion is a contributing property to the NRHP-listed Seneca Falls Village Historic District and is significant as a late-period and somewhat atypical example of Second Empire architecture: the stark color contrast between the red brick and the light-colored stone trim, the narrow round- and segmentally-arched windows with dressed stone voussoirs, the tall central tower, and of course the straight-sided, slate shingle-faced mansard roof are all trademark features of the style, while the irregular massing and Eastlake-inspired woodwork on the veranda are far more unusual. Its original owner was Delancey Erastus Partridge (1844-1879), a noted local financier who was the founding president of the State Bank of Seneca Falls. He built the house as a wedding gift to his wife Marian née Morris, importing brickmasons from Canada to construct the exterior while furnishing the interior with numerous items he purchased during his extensive travels through Europe, but sadly died only a few years after the house was completed. It remained in the hands of his widow until her death in 1926. The Partridge House is generally agreed by cinema historians to be the inspiration for the "drafty old house" that George and Mary Bailey bought and restored in the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, and its later history closely echoes the storyline of the movie: it was likely in a similarly dilapidated condition when director Frank Capra visited Seneca Falls in December 1945, but has been thoroughly and magnificently restored by its present owners since their purchase of the property in 1997.