MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Robert Kane, curator of the Rowley House shows off the dining room.

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
Robert Kane, curator of the Rowley House shows off the hand carved cherry front doors and stained glass windows in the entry way to the Rowley House.

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
Robert Kane, curator of the Rowley House shows off the combination of hand carving and machine tooling around the Backus Manufacturing Company fireplace in the informal parlor.

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
Robert Kane, curator of the Rowley House shows off the dining room.

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
The main stained glass window is at the top of the steps.

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
The intricate hand carving in the cheery front doors.

The Rowley House Museum, 707 W. Fourth St., originally was built in 1888 by architect Eber Culver for Edwin Rowley and his family. It is a three-floor mansion with 13 bedrooms, a ballroom, kitchen, dining room and multiple parlors. Rowley owned Rowley and Hermance Co., which was an international woodworking machinery company, and also worked in the electricity, gas fireplace and banking industries. After his death in 1893, the Rishel family bought it, then sold it in 1932 to the Diocese of Scranton to make the house a convent for 14 nuns with the former Church of the Annunciation. In 2002, Robert Kane Jr. bought the building from the diocese and renovated it. The home now is a museum with Preservation Williamsport as a part of preserving the city’s past.