File:Robert Renwick House, Belfast, New York - 20201031.jpg

English: The Robert Renwick House, 2 Main Street at Pike Street, Belfast, New York, October 2020. Built about 1840, the house is transitional in style: Greek Revival details such as a shallow-pitched hip roof, fenestration scheme of six-over-six sash windows, strict vertical symmetry on the façade, and Doric entrance portico predominate in the design, yet the square floor plan and cupola crowning the roof point the way forward toward the Italianate architecture that would come to prominence in the ensuing decades. The house is certainly one of the more historic in the hamlet: original owner Robert Renwick (1804-1865) was a native of Hobkirk, Roxburghshire, Scotland who was one of the foremost citizens in the early days of Belfast: he started off as a farmer and part-time schoolmaster, served a brief term as town supervisor in 1835, and by the time the house was built had become a well-to-do merchant whose grocery and dry goods store stood across from the Public Square in the center of town. For a time after Renwick's death, the building was operated as a hotel which counted among its guests the famous bare-knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan, who lodged there while training for his bout with Jake Kilrain in 1889.