Over the course of just a few short years, How did a simple dirt road in Ohio end up
rivaling the beauty of Les Champs-Elysees in Paris?.
Hi everyone ken here welcome to this house.
Today we are exploring the lost neighborhood known as Millionaire’s Row in Cleveland
Ohio.
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house.
When Rufus Dunham began looking for a new farm, he had no idea that he would be purchasing
what would soon become some of the country’s most valuable real estate.
He followed Euclid Avenue from Cleveland until it turned into a dirt road out in the country
side.
It was a pleasant, unspoiled landscape with mature trees and large flat pastures.
The 140 acres were pristine and untouched by man, it was exactly the setting he had
dreamed of for settling down with his family.
But there was one problem, the dirt roads became muddy with even the lightest rain fall
which led to his horses and stage coach becoming stuck in the mud.
He set out to enhance the road, installing a rudimentary drainage system.
This caught the attention of nearby Cleveland as the once treacherous road was now consistently
traversable.
Cleveland’s wealthiest residents were the first to take note and began chipping in to
further improve Euclid Avenue, many of them discovering the untamed beauty of the wilderness
for the first time.
Within a short amount of time, the road had been widened with manicured gardens gracing
the oversized sidewalks and wealthy families had funded the construction of churches and
schools as they planned a new community which would become known as Millionaire’s Row.
Perhaps the most famous residence was that of John D Rockefeller who was quick to build
his second empire style mansion.
Though it was not as large as some of the homes we are about to see, it was unique in
that the façade was planned to be symmetrical incorporating 3 street facing palladian windows.
His business partner, the chemist Samuel Andrews built his house just down the street in the
Richardsonian Romanesque style.
The erratic placement of architectural elements seemingly slapped on the house drew critique
for being tasteless.
And to make matters worse, the layout of the house favored form over function to such an
extreme that it was not possible for staff to service the home navigating a maze of interior
features.
So the house was immediately abandoned and stood empty in a thriving neighborhood.
Down the street was the largest home on Millionaire’s Row, the House of Sylvester T. Everett, a
successful financier.
Sylvester intended for his home to last for all of time and ordered the walls to be constructed
out of 4 foot thick stone blocks.
The façade of the Richardsonian Romanesque style home featured intricate stone carvings,
especially around the archways where we could see flowers, vines, and other natural motifs
paired with geometric reliefs.
No surface on the exterior was left unadorned with busts and drama masks worked into the
least noticeable corners tucked behind the balustrade.
Further down the street was cleveland’s most modern home, the Charles Francis Brush
Mansion.
Charles had invented the arc lamp and was the first to incorporate electricity into
his Grey Stone house via a wind turbine generator which powered 12 batteries to light the house.
Charles would invite clients and investors to his home where he would show off his basement
laboratory.
The house was described to be just as eccentric as the man who built it with wall paneling
crafted from Japanese Rosewood and abstract designs by Louis Comfort Tiffany worked into
the stained glass windows.
In his will, Charles mandated that the house along with any inventions on the property
were to be destroyed upon his death, and so they were.
Next on our tour is the Tom Johnson House.
Johnson invented the toll-box for trollies and made a fortune with his patent.
With that fortune, he built a meandering stone house which quickly became overgrown with
Ivy.
During his time here, he became the mayor of Cleveland.
As time went on, Cleveland grew larger and larger, the city was spreading into what was
once the country side and the once idealistic neighborhood was being surrounded by skyscrapers.
One by one, the wealthy residents sold their homes to businesses.
One of these homes was even used as a car dealership before being torn down.
By the 1930s, the great depression had taken it’s toll on millionaires row and the last
remaining residents had no other option but to sell their homes.
In the 1950s, during the period of Urban Renewal, a freeway was planned to cut through the neighborhood,
demolishing the mansions in its path.
Within 10 years, the area had become slums, the few decaying mansions which once housed
some of the nation’s most elite were considered substandard and demolished.
Today, only a handful of homes and buildings from the neighborhood survive, though none
in their entirety.
The Mather Mansion is perhaps the most intact, though it has been gutted to accommodate the
uses of Cleveland State University.
While the freeway has certainly served the city, many continue to ask if the tradeoff
was worth it.
Was it worth losing the city’s architectural heritage for convenience?
Let me know your thoughts down below.
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