Paul Wright House

Client: Historic Erie Preservation Trust
Location: 515 Walnut St., Erie, Pennsylvania
Dates: Original building — c.1873; Renovation - In progress
Size: 3,445 SF

This Colonial Revival style house is from remodeling of a vernacular house built here c. 1873 for prominent businessman Addison Leech (1824-1899) as a guest house for his adjacent residence at 462 W. 6th Street. Erie industrialist Paul D. Wright (1872-1957) and wife, Lillian Gillen Wright (1872-1905), bought the property 1901 from the Leech-Luce Family and remodeled it into then popular Colonial Revival style seen here. (After Lillian’s untimely death at 33, Paul married Charlotte Mehl Wright, 1876-1973).

The exterior of this home features its original clapboard siding and wood trim, restored and repainted. The property also has brand new windows and a new roof. Inside, the house was converted back into two apartments, complete with new kitchens and all new bathrooms. The home also includes all-new electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems.

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Paul Darling Wright, born in nearby Westfield, NY to a prominent family, attended Westfield Public Schools and Phillips Academy at Andover, MA before graduating 1896 from Yale University’s Sheffield Scientific School. After working for New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, he joined Erie’s Reed Manufacturing Co. 1902 when his father Reuben Gridley Wright (1824-1906) acquired that pipe tool and vice manufacturing company founded 1896 by Carl M. Reed, grandson of Gen. Charles M. Reed. Reuben Wright, who made a fortune in 1849 California Gold Rush and later the timber business, died 1906.

Paul Wright succeeded his father as President of Reed, serving 50 years with younger brother, Ross Pier Wright (1874-1967 - 235 W. 6th St.) as Secretary-Treasurer. (Reed Mfg. has since continued into 5th generation of Wright Family). Active in the Erie Community, Paul Wright also served 1923-1925 as Pennsylvania Secretary of Highways under Gov. Gifford Pinchot and was involved in the famous “Pinchot Roads” program — the ambitious paving of many miles of county roads. Considered a fine horseman, Paul lost a leg in an accident while in Harrisburg, but continued to frequently ride horseback.

After 64 years, Wright Family sold this house 1965 to John Chester “Jack” Lillis (1927-2016) and wife Mary Eugenia “Mary Gene” Pyne Lillis (1935-2015), parents of eight children and whose family continued to own the property for 60 years.

This historic house, bordering West Sixth Street Historic District, was acquired and restored 2025 by Historic Erie Preservation Trust as a place of historic and architectural interest for the benefit of the Erie Community.