917-919 Elberon Avenue - 1999-2003 Hamilton County Auditor |
While Carol had heard rumors this could have been the Price family home, before this land was divided into smaller building lots, it was once owned by the Boyle family as seen on the 1869 map below:
1869 Titus Map |
D. R. Kenny's Illustrated Cincinnati published in 1875 |
1891 Sanborn Insurance Map - Source |
The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 9, 1892
Castle Boyle; Once a Princely Mansion; The Most Palatial
Residence in the West; Next Week To Be Leveled To the Ground; Recollections of
a House With Silver Door Hinges; Its
Master Was One of the Pioneer Distillers of the City
The celebrated Boyle homestead is to be sold at auction
on the 11th. For more than a quarter of a century it has been one of the most
famous landmarks of Hamilton County. Its history and that of the family who
occupied it, read like a romance tinged with sadness that is as pathetic as
true. It is located on a commanding eminence on Price Hill, and some years ago,
about ten, was purchased at public auction by the Board of Education for
$50,000 and since then, about $10,000 more having been expended, has been used
for school purposes.
It has been utterly unsuited for these, and the growing wants
of Price Hill families are such that the magnificent structure is to be torn
down, and on the 13th, two days after the tearing down contract is let, the
bids for building the new $40,000 Public School house will be opened and let.
The house is decidedly the finest and most massive ever erected in Hamilton
County. It cost in the neighborhood of $300,000 and it was a structure designed
by its owner to stand for ages.
Stephen S. Boyle, who built the house, but never lived to
see its completion, as he died in New York City in 1864, was perhaps the
leading distiller and rectifier west of the Alleghenies before and during the
early part of the war. He was a native of the County Cavan, Ireand, and started
in the distilling and rectifying business in this city in 1847, on Front street
the second door east of Broadway.
Then he established the Queen City Distillery, on Second
street, near Elm and afterward built a larger one on Second street near
Broadway. He accumulated money rapidly, and the Boyle Caste, as it was called,
originally stood in the center of a sixty-five acre tract, now in the heart of
the most thickly populated part of Price Hill. The house contained twenty-two
rooms, and the wall and foundations were laid not in mortar but cement.
The marble was all brought from Italy and workmen brought
over to put it up. There was a private chapel with stained windows, too, and
they were imported. The interior was fitted with black walnut, some of the
doors being eight inches thick. The parlor door swung on silver hinges that
cost $45 apiece. There were nine large cisterns on the premises connected
together.
The grounds contained every variety of fruit, and every
thing about the mansion and connected with it was of the most solid and expensive
order. After Boyle’s death the widow carried out the plans of her husband in
the minutest detail. At the sale of furniture of the house, much of the
bric-a-brac was purchased by connoisseurs, and some of it is at the Art Museum.
Benn Pitman secured some treasures, and there are even in Dr. Weatherhead’s
drug store some of the settees to-day. After the widow’s death, who was a Quakereas,
but a Catholic by conversion, the residence fell to one of the sons, who let it
go under the hammer.
There were several sons, Peyton S. who was educated for
the priesthood, but married and is now believed to living in St. Paul engaged
in business. Edward, another son, is dead. Steve lives on a farm in Fostoria.
Two of the daughters, one of whom was blind, are in convents, secluded forever
from the world. The house has been struck two or three times by lightning and
during the severe storm of Tuesday, while the teachers and pupils were in
school, they all felt a severe shock, which they describe as shaking the entire
building.
A tour through the house and up into the cupola, which
commands of one the most magnificent views in Hamilton County, was recently
made by an Enquirer reporter with Mr. John Klein, the efficient Superintendent
of Public School Buildings. The house has, of course, been stripped of its
treasurers, but the massive oak staircases and solid mahogany, huge doors,
black walnut pouching and Venetian stained-glass windows remain. There is a
lively interest among contractors and buyers of material in reference to the
sale, and a large crowd will no doubt be attracted on Saturday, the 11th.
Eleven seventeenths of the proceeds go to the Barr estate.
Whittier Public School, completed in 1894 - Source |
Curiously, this building was also struck by lightning in 1958 and was demolished. This area is now known as Whittier Gardens, and is "An educational park with theme gardens - bird and
butterfly gardens, fruits and berries, and other flora native to this region of
the country." - Source
Back to our subject home, the Wehner family continued to live in one half of the home at 917-919 Elberon Avenue while renting the other half. As you can see from the 1900 Census below, both the Wehner family at 917 and the Allen family at 919 had servants.
1900 United States Census - Ancestry.com |
Those tunnels which Carol believed were for coal deliveries might also have been servant entrances. These tunnel openings can be seen in the photo below:
Google Streetview |
The Wehner family continued to own the building until 1974. It continued to be used as rental property, being divided into four units, from Carol's recollection. It was demolished before 2005, but the wall and tunnel entrances can still be seen on Elberon Avenue.
2005 Hamilton County Auditor |
"Whittier Gardens" is raised above the street level by around 5-6 feet on the whole block that it sits and stone walls retain the ground to that level. I had heard that originally the people building the homes surrounding that block dumped their basement's contents on this block and when they were done instead of getting rid of the pile of dirt they just walled it in and flattened it out as the park that it is now. From what you uncovered that seems to be untrue, as the mansion was there before all the homes around it, so any idea why the street is so much lower than that block (and it looks like the homes surrounding WG?
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the picture of the old Whitter School in the blog, you will see the school also sat higher than the street. Perhaps the home and school were built on a small hill?
ReplyDeleteThe property i own on Purcell sits on three parcells. I was told by a neighbor that the city previously owned one of these parcells and some of the remains from the old whittier school was burried here. Seems believable since we dug up a ton of concrete and mortar when I first purchased this property. Do you know this to be true? It would be awesome to know I have pieces of this historical building on my property.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any evidence of the city owning your property on Purcell prior to 1956, but they may have before then.
DeletePrior to demolition I was able to salvage 1 or 2 of the plaster ceiling medallions from this home. 1 of which, I stripped and had repainted and is once again a highlight in our Price Hill home foyer. I also salvaged the stone balusters on the front porch but have since donated them to the Cincinnati ReUse Center and do not know of their present whereabouts. I still have 2 of them and will mark them accordingly. Thanks for the info on this home.
ReplyDeletePrior to demolition I was able to salvage 1 or 2 of the plaster ceiling medallions from this home. 1 of which, I stripped and had repainted and is once again a highlight in our Price Hill home foyer. I also salvaged the stone balusters on the front porch but have since donated them to the Cincinnati ReUse Center and do not know of their present whereabouts. I still have 2 of them and will mark them accordingly. Thanks for the info on this home.
ReplyDelete