Bavarian-born Louis Bernhard was a watchmaker and jeweler who came to Bloomsburg in 1858 and took up architecture. He designed commercial blocks and houses, and his own Italianate house was the start of an elite neighborhood at the south end of town. Among those who followed his lead were attorney Fred T. Ikeler, whose house (c. 1895) at 42 E. 5th Street has an onion-shaped dome on its slate roof and giant sculpted owls perched on its gables. Nearby at number 60, the Samuel Clifton Creasy house (c. 1890) is a Queen Anne design by Bernhard; Creasy was director of the Creasy and Wells Lumber Company.