Baldwin house - 608 Walnut Street

Client: Historic Erie Preservation Trust
Location: 608 Walnut St., Erie, Pennsylvania
Dates: Original building — c.1941; Renovation complete — 2025
Size: 2,600 SF

This vernacular brick home with attached garage was built in 1941 as a rental property by George Daniel Baldwin (1876-1946), reported to be “Erie’s No. 1 property owner and landlord” at the time of his death. Located on a prominent West 6th Street corner just a half block east of Baldwin’s residence at 539 West 6th St., this house is an example of only a few single-family homes of this particular style among thousands of other Baldwin houses built during the first half of the 20th Century.

This project included masonry restoration and cleaning, roof replacement, window replacement, painting, and landscaping. On the interior, the house was converted into a three-bedroom home with a new kitchen, two remodeled bathrooms, and a mudroom addition to connect the garage to the house. The home also includes all-new electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems.

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G. Daniel Baldwin, as he was known, was born in a log cabin on his parent’s farm in Erie County’s Venango Township. Educated in rural schools, he came to Erie to attend Davis Business College. He worked for a time for his father, James Baldwin (1848-1938), who began building homes in Erie 1904 with lumber from his then farm in Amity Township. In 1909, G. Daniel formed Baldwin Brothers partnership with his brother Isaac Baldwin (1883-1941). According to Erie Daily Times, they “erected, sold and rented thousands of homes, apartments and business blocks in ever section of Erie.” The homes were often erected under mass construction methods.

The Erie Daily Times reported G. Daniel Baldwin was known to boast that he provided “the nicest and neatest homes purchasers could afford.” He was a world traveler with his wife, Mabel Loesel Baldwin (1885-1968). At the time of his death 1946, Erie Daily Times referred to him as a “millionaire”, and a “land tycoon” and reported that his “real estate holdings are now so extensive that he was said to be one of the largest individual land owners in the entire United States.” His adopted sons (also nephews), J. Robert Baldwin (1917-1995) and Arthur W. Baldwin (1925-2002), succeeded him in business.

During its first 26 years, this home was leased to James B. Griffin, Sr. (1890-1967). President of Griffin Manufacturing Co. Gannon University bough the property 1983 from the Baldwin’s. In 1984, the house was included on the National Register of Historic Places by U.S. Department of the Interior (listed with erroneous description and 602 Walnut house number), as one of the 117 buildings in Erie’s West Sixth Street Historic District. At the time, the house at 43 years of age was considered an “intrusion” in the Historic District, but could have been listed as “contributing” if it were at least 50 years old which did not occur until 1991.

In 2023, the house was acquired from Gannon University by Historic Erie Preservation Trust with the purpose of preserving it as a place of historic and architectural interest for the community.

The building was listed as 602 Walnut Street (Baldwin Duplex) on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior as an intusion in the West Sixth Street Historic District in 1984.