RA-74

ERNEST A. RICKER RESIDENCE 
("The Queen Victoria") 
717 POST STREET
(Relocated to Oak Street in 1999)
DATE: 1892 
ARCHITECT & BUILDER: Unknown 

       With its distinctive tower and profuse wooden gingerbread, this is the finest remaining example of the Queen Anne style in Riverside.  It was built in 1892 for the family of Ernest A. Ricker, a dealer in wines, liquors, coffee, and cigars, and also a distributor of Coca-Cola.  The house was originally located a block away on Oak Street, where members of the Ricker family lived for three-quarters of a  century until Mrs. Ricker died in 1967 at the age of 100.  Preservationist Helen Lane acquired the house and moved it to this current location to avert its demolition.  Numerous trappings of the exuberant Victorian architecture are on display here, including asymmetrical massing, scrollsawn and turned-wood ornaments on the porches, a multi-plane roof, and decorative gable ends with incised trimwork. In September, 1999, the house was moved for a third  time, to make way for the expansion of Riverside Presbyterian Day School.  Ironically, the new site of the Ricker house is back on Oak Street, barely 100 feet from where it was originally  located.