Reading more of the book I referenced in the last post, I found the following picture:
Accompanying text describes that house next door as having been built by “Washington Throop… in the early 1830s to provide his daughter, Sarah, with a clear sight of ships arriving and departing the busy port, a view of the lake John also appreciated. (Herman Melville described Lake Ontario befittingly as one of ‘those grand fresh-water seas of our,’ which ‘possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits.’)”.
It’s a view we appreciate as well.