Laura W. Lord House

 
The Laura W. Lord House is an outstanding example of the Italianate style, so popular in Hudson in the 1870s. The house was pictured in the 1874 Summit County Atlas. At that time, it had a front porch, since removed. The house features hood moldings with keystone arches and an arched portico. The house is on its original sandstone foundation.

Laura Weld Delano came to Hudson to live with her aunt. Their family was related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s mother. She met and married Nathan Lord, a theology student at Western Reserve College. Their wedding was in Stowe, Vermont, and they soon returned to Hudson to take up housekeeping.

Nathan Lord was a successful man, the financial secretary and treasurer of Western Reserve College. He felt a religious calling, however, and soon Lord and his wife went to Ceylon as missionaries. On their return, they had three children and a fourth on the way.
Nathan Lord, unfortunately, died young. Laura Lord bought land from Dr. Frank Hodge to the south (1871, part of the Harvey Coe property) and John Chapman to the north (1872). On this combined parcel she built a house valued at $3000– no small sum for the day.

Mrs. Lord hoped to support her family by boarding missionaries’ children attending the college. She lived there until her death in 1915, at which time her youngest daughter Alice inherited the home. She eventually sold it in 1919.

In 2003, Jean Harford, the great-granddaughter of the home’s original owner, toured the building and declared it had changed little.