The McHenry Neighborhood

Matilda and Robert McHenry were not building novices when they built their house in Modesto in 1882.  They had built a house on their Homestead property in 1865 and a house in Stockton shortly before 1870.  The Stockton house was sold in 1873 for $2,500 before the family moved back to Stanislaus County.

McHenry was the first to buy lots in Modesto Block 122 when he purchased five lots from Charles Crocker on May 21, 1880.  The First Presbyterian Church purchased lots in Block 112 (SW of Block 122) in 1880, but the Church building was completed and dedicated before McHenry started his house in 1882.  No lots had been sold in Block 121 directly across I Street from McHenry. However, just two blocks away on H Street there were neighbors.  L. C. Branch described the W. E. Turner residence just completed in 1880 as the “. . . handsomest and most comfortable family home in the county.  It is probably the most substantially built house of its kind.  The grounds are being laid out in the most elaborate and ornamental manner.”  The owner was William Evans Turner, a lawyer and Civil War veteran born in New Zealand, and, with seven daughters, he needed a large house.  Did he need the entire block for his garden?

J. D. Spencer, the editor of the “Stanislaus Weekly News” was in a snit in June of 1886.  A Fresno newspaper had printed a comment about Modesto that Spencer took exception to.  Spencer’s reply was, “Don’t be so patronizing.  We (Modesto) have three palaces to your (Fresno) one and not in your entire county have you such residences as these.”

Here is Spencer’s list of Modesto’s elegant homes with their 1893 Tax Assessment values added.

McHenry house built in 1882  Land value $1,400  Building $10,000 

Bledsoe house built in 1885   Land value $1,850   Building $6,500                   

Rogers house built in 1893    Land value $1,200   Building $ 5,000               

Turner house built in 1880     Land value $1,650   Building $4,000 

Voight house built in 1885     Land value  $ 850     Building $4,000                   

Hatton house built in 1892     Land value $ 600  Building $3,000                  

Spencer, who died in 1895, did not live to see the other fine homes built in what was downtown especially on J Street, but they all became victims of progress.  Of Spencer’s palaces, only the McHenry and Hatton houses remain.  The Bledsoe house became a restaurant, The Cedars, and then was replaced by the elegant Shannon Funeral Chapel in 1936.  The Turner house burned and was replaced by the First United Methodist Church in 1933.  The Voight house retained its residential status until 1953 when it was replaced by the Homer Fair Building, the home of Slater’s Furniture Store.

How fortunate we are to have two fine examples of houses built before the realization of irrigation by two forward-thinking men who contributed so much to make Modesto what it is today.