Ionic columns announce the William R. Griffith House, also called the Cathedral House of St. Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral, a Greek Revival home here in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Built between 1840 and 1843, this three-story, three-bay-wide brick dwelling was designed in the Greek Revival style. The front block measures twenty-eight feet by forty feet, with a narrower rear block fifteen feet by fifty feet, and the effect is compact, deliberate, and elegant.
Approach the front portico and you can hardly miss the freestanding Ionic order columns that announce the home's classical ambitions. Think of families and clergy moving through those columns and up into a residence that, in 1976, was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. The house has been recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS No. PA-39) as the residence associated with St. Stephen's Protestant Episcopal Church at 215 North Front Street, documented in five photos, seventeen measured drawings, and two data pages.
Notice the three-story Greek Revival block behind the portico, its elegant Ionic columns and brick facades framing the street.