Correction: Get the date right

Crikey, my neighborhood really is all the rage, isn't it? I was glad to see your real estate maven say nice things about 405 Ridge St. [On the Block, "Challenging: Victorian may repay hard work," October 2, 2003]. However, her piece did include an error that ought to be corrected. She wrote that the house was built in 1925. Actually, it dates to 1891.

I don't doubt that the agent gave her the 1925 date. That's the date on the City assessor's online property card for the place, and all the real estate folks use those cards in property descriptions. Problem is, those cards contain acres of errors, and they're wrongest of all on building dates.

To check "veracity" on this, see the City-produced "Survey of the Ridge Street Historic District and Proposal for Local Designation" of March 1994. The house, also known as the Leathers-Snyder House, appears on pages 23 and 24. (The library should have a copy, as should the Historical Society. Or, you could go to City Hall to see it and, while there, pull the house's very own folder from the street-to-street file.)

To quote a bit: "This house stands on the site of the old Methodist Presiding Elder's house built in 1844. In 1891, after a new parsonage was built just to the north, the church subdivided its property and sold Bettie P. Leathers (Mrs. James A. Leathers) this lot on Ridge Street and an adjoining one on Dice Street behind it and the new parsonage. Tax records show that the Leathers built this house immediately..."

Antoinette W. Roades
Charlottesville

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