Rachel Wells News

Adolph Strauch: Great Garden Design in Clifton & Beyond

By Steve Schuckman

This article was first published in the Summer 2022 Clifton Chronicle.

Adloph Strauch and his family are buried at Spring Grove on an island in the lake near the entrance to the cemetery.

A chance meeting in London in 1851 began a relationship that shaped the way we experience parks and gardens in Cincinnati. Robert Bonner Bowler (owner of a Clifton estate that became Mt. Storm Park) was visiting the World Exposition at London’s Crystal Palace when he met Adolph Strauch, a Prussian gardener. During their garden tour conversation, Bowler invited Strauch to visit him in Cincinnati – if he was ever in America. Not long after, Strauch indeed did visit America. While waiting to change trains in Cincinnati for a cross-country trip, he recalled Bowler’s offer. He visited Bowler, who in turn invited him to stay to design the landscape of his estate. The master gardener decided that Cincinnati would be his new home, and the rest – as they say – is history.

Strauch (1822-1883) had studied in Vienna and worked at the Schonbrunn Palace gardens. The form and beauty he introduced at Bowler’s estate was noticed, and many wealthy Cincinnati residents contracted Strauch to redesign their own properties. It seemed everyone wanted a Strauch design, which eliminated fences and created flowing landscapes of lawns with stands of trees that framed views. He designed the grounds of Henry Probasco’s estate at Oakwood and George Schoenberger’s estate at Scarlet Oaks, among others. Though these landscapes are long gone, Probasco’s house remains on West Cliff Drive, and Schoenberger’s remains at Scarlet Oaks. 

Just three years after settling in Cincinnati in 1851, Strauch was hired to redesign and redefine the landscape in Spring Grove Cemetery, where he later became superintendent in 1859. His hand can be seen in the winding roads, lakes, the groupings of plantings, and his open lawn design, which became a model for other “garden” cemeteries that followed. He eliminated fencing and railings between plots to create a free-flowing design of space that he called a “landscape lawn plan,” introducing plants from around the world. He also designed other important cemeteries, including Forest Lawn in Buffalo and Oak Woods in Chicago. While still working at Spring Grove, Strauch became superintendent of parks (1871-1875) and designed Eden Park and Burnet Woods. 

Due in large part to Strauch’s work, Clifton became known as a garden spot of America, and our hilltop community took on the look of a single large park. An 1875 publication described Clifton as “…hill, dale, lawn, ravine, field and forest, interspersed with bright evergreens and shrubbery, blossom with shady nooks and sunny glades in which nestle the roomy, cool verandas and graveled walks of the fine homes of Clifton.” Strauch talked of his own designs as expressing “cheerfulness, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude and repose amid scenery designed to imitate rural nature.” Other than the “Temple of Love” – an elegant domed landmark that covers the cistern over a reservoir that watered the gardens and greenhouses of the Bowler estate – little remains of Strauch’s landscape design there today. A recent effort to rejuvenate the park’s landscaping is inspired by the precepts of Strauch’s work.

Rachel Wells News

The Clifton & Ludlow Crossroads of the 1890s

By Geoff Gelke, The History Buffs

This article was first published in the Summer 2022 Clifton Chronicle.

What could be more iconic to Clifton than the intersection of Clifton and Ludlow avenues?  It wasn’t always as it appears today. Let’s time-travel corner to corner:

Cincinnati Gas and Coke Company, office and agent’s home

The Southwest Corner: The beautiful Beaux Arts Firehouse No. 34 was built in 1906, designed by architect Harry Hake to house the fire vehicles and horses serving Clifton. The earlier firehouse had been included in the town hall/school complex located at Clifton and Central (now McAlpin) avenues. The complex was becoming so run down that Mr. Balsch – resident of the grand McDonald mansion next door – complained that he wouldn’t send his son there. Hence the impetus to build a new school in 1905, and a new firehouse in 1906. To relocate the firehouse to Clifton and Ludlow, an 1883 building designed by famed architect Samuel Hannaford was demolished. The Hannaford structure had been home to the Cincinnati Gas & Coke Company and its district agent George Dury and family.

The Northwest Corner:  The three-story commercial red brick building dates to the 1880s, when attorney Joseph Bley’s offices were on the first floor. Soon after came Adolf Meyer’s grocery store with modifications to the first floor exterior into the commercial appearance of today, with Meyer’s initials above a corner front door. The grocery was succeeded for decades by Dow Drugs until Adrian Durban Florist settled into their remarkably colorful shop.

The Northeast Corner: Built in the 1880s as a drug store for Byrne and Company Drugs with apartments above, this handsome Dutch Colonial building later housed Stier Drugs in 1907. Modernizations to the store’s exterior are reflected in the recently restored Art Deco logo. Stier thrived into the 1950s before finally transitioning in 1966 to our famed Skyline Chili parlor. 

The Southeast Corner: The Diggs Fountain and Burnet Woods trailhead at the foot of the hill were not always there. Examine the old 1891 property lines map – this area was full of buildings! The home and stables of road contractor Thomas J. Howard were accompanied by at least six additional residences leading up to the park’s entrance on Brookline. One resident of note was Frederick Bissinger, the famous candy manufacturer. Around 1905 to 1907, Cincinnati Parks purchased and rezoned this triangular-shaped four-acre parcel. Down went the buildings and in went the plantings! An 1870s gift of woodlands made to the city from Clifton barons Robert Burnet and William Groesbeck, the parkland honored patriarch and Cincinnati icon Jacob Burnet. Burnet Woods originally covered 170 acres, whittled to about half that by the turn of the century by an ever-expanding University of Cincinnati campus. Today Burnet Woods covers about 90 acres. Cincinnati Parks made up for the loss of greenspace elsewhere in their system at other properties, including Ault Park.

Map of Clifton and Ludlow avenues in 1891
Rachel Wells News

Robert Bonner Bowler: A “Baron of Clifton”

By Jan Checco

This article was first published in the Summer 2022 Clifton Chronicle.

Robert Bonner Bowler

Robert Bowler (1803-1864) came to Cincinnati from Providence, Rhode Island in 1820. In 1842, he married Susan Pendleton, granddaughter of the politically powerful Judge Nathaniel Pendleton, and made his riches in dry goods and railroading. His 1845 two-story brick and stucco house – Mount Storm – featured two terraces and a porch with views of the Kentucky hills sweeping up the Mill Creek. A tower was added later.

Bowler’s landscape included shade trees from around the world and 17 greenhouses, making it like none other in the Midwest. A lovingly-tended collection of rare roses, 90 varieties of camellia, 60 begonia varieties, a collection of bananas and palm trees were splendidly complemented by seven Australian black swans gliding on small lakes. A publication of the period noted, “The entire residence was most lavishly decorated with rare plants, bright flowers and buds, exotics evergreen and smilax, the perfume of which filled the air.”

Sadly, Bowler enjoyed this paradise for only 19 years. He was struck and killed in 1864 by an urban stagecoach. His wife, their three children and grandchildren stayed on with the help of Irish laborer James Cluxton, who worked for 53 years to care for the property and helped to rear the children born at Mount Storm.  

The city of Cincinnati purchased Mount Storm and its 70 acres from the Bowler family in 1912 with a promise to make it a park. The former grand home was demolished when a battle to save it was lost in 1917.

Robert Bonner Bowler had this two-story brick and stucco house built in 1845. Named “Mount Storm,” the home was surrounded by a 70-acre landscape featuring rare roses, palm trees and more. The home was demolished in 1917 and the land became Mt. Storm Park.
Rachel Wells News

A Treasury of Millstones

By Geoff Gelke, The History Bluffs

This article was first published in the Summer 2022 Clifton Chronicle.

Halfway down the northern curve of Clifton Avenue resides Dr.Thurman Henderson in “Shady Side,” a splendid Italianate mansion built in 1851 by Joseph Clarkson Ringwalt, successful Cincinnati merchant. The hilltop residence is embraced by woodland that, in the 19th century, included a “pretty lakelet” formed by damming the ravine behind the home. Replete with select trees and foliage, the property enjoyed raves in Sydney Maxwell’s 1870 publication Suburbs of Cincinnati. One can imagine the Ringwalts’ pleasure, swimming for over fifty-five years within their private fairyland forest!

Pictured is an edge-roller millstone, part of 18th century machinery used to crush grain. Millstones were found near a home in Clifton and donated to Clifton Town Meeting in 2022. Some were moved to Clifton Plaza for all to see.

Today, Dr. Henderson – a renowned physicist, inventor, engineer and scientist – continues to enjoy vestiges of his property’s past grandeur. He was delighted to recently understand details that formerly eluded comprehension – dozens of 24- to 40-inch-wide round and flat stones, all hiding in plain sight throughout the grounds. Eighteenth century millstones!

These probably came from the 1791 Irwin Mill – a grist mill built along the Mill Creek at the bottom of Clifton Avenue (called Irwin Mill Road until 1848.) The stones are classified as “edge-roller” type, engineered to roll on their wide edge surfaces around a large flat stone. Connected to a center drive shaft, the wheels rolled in circles, crushing grain spread beneath them. The grooves on the edges facilitated the movement of ground grain out to a deep circular pan where the flour was collected and bagged. More than one millstone could be driven by the center shaft, powered by gigantic overhead wooden gears, which were rotated by a waterwheel turning in the creek water’s flow. In periods of drought, the hydraulic flow was assured by a nearby “mill pond” via water channeled downhill in a “race run” (wooden trough). Such simple grist mills were typical in wilderness times when most millstones in America came from France or England, perhaps accompanied by the huge wooden gearing which allowed frontier mills to be constructed quickly.

Much to the disappointment of William Irwin, his mill was eclipsed by the 1830s when the Miami & Erie Canal came through the valley. Among the ruins would have been piles of used millstones, just waiting to be discovered by Mr. Ringwalt and recognized for their potential as pavers. Scores of them were set in place throughout his estate as stepping stones down into the ravine through the woods on the way to the pond. The millstones now protrude irregularly from the ground, shifted by 150 years of erosion.

Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Henderson, visitors to Clifton can now view and touch some of these millstones and imagine them at work in 1791, grinding flour to bake the bread of Clifton’s first farmers.  Could these be our community’s oldest relics?

Rachel Wells News

Hiding in Plain Sight: Clifton History in Our Sidewalks

By Margaret Reich

This article was first published in the Clifton Chronicle

One of several bronze “art carpet” along Ludlow Avenue. This one features a card catalogue and book spines in reference to Clifton Branch Library, which was once housed in a nearby building. Photo by Kip Eagen.

While serving as president of the Clifton Community Fund, one of the most fun emails I’ve received came from a Clifton resident curious about the beautiful bronze panels inset on the sidewalks of Ludlow Avenue. A book lover, she asked about the plaque in front of Gaslight Bar and Grill that features a card catalog and book spines with titles she did not recognize. Many Clifton residents may not know that this building once housed our neighborhood library. The titles and authors featured are all inside jokes about Clifton and Cincinnati history. For instance, “I Know Where the Bodies Are Buried” by Adolph Strauch: He was the 19th century designer and landscaper of Spring Grove Cemetery. Israel Ludlow was a surveyor who helped to found Cincinnati. The Academy of the Sacred Heart on Lafayette Avenue was built to look like an English castle. “Schnecken: A Tale of Butter and Cinnamon,” by Virginia Bakery: this recalls the beloved bakery famous for a pastry sold from the shop where we now find J. Gumbo’s. Sharp observers will notice that the wisteria arbor next to J. Gumbo’s still has “Virginia Bakery” etched into the wood.

While serving as president of the Clifton Community Fund, one of the most fun emails I’ve received came from a Clifton resident curious about the beautiful bronze panels inset on the sidewalks of Ludlow Avenue. A book lover, she asked about the plaque in front of Gaslight Bar and Grill that features a card catalog and book spines with titles she did not recognize. Many Clifton residents may not know that this building once housed our neighborhood library. The titles and authors featured are all inside jokes about Clifton and Cincinnati history. For instance, “I Know Where the Bodies Are Buried” by Adolph Strauch: He was the 19th century designer and landscaper of Spring Grove Cemetery. Israel Ludlow was a surveyor who helped to found Cincinnati. The Academy of the Sacred Heart on Lafayette Avenue was built to look like an English castle. “Schnecken: A Tale of Butter and Cinnamon,” by Virginia Bakery: this recalls the beloved bakery famous for a pastry sold from the shop where we now find J. Gumbo’s. Sharp observers will notice that the wisteria arbor next to J. Gumbo’s still has “Virginia Bakery” etched into the wood.

There are six bronze plaques in total, inlaid on sidewalks on both sides of Ludlow Avenue. Originally called “Art Carpets,” the art panels were fabricated and installed in 2010. In 2016, CCF helped to reset them after some had started to shift. Take a look at the plaques as you stroll the business district this spring, ice cream cone or coffee drink in hand. Many of them are still related to adjacent buildings as are the ones in front of the Esquire and Graeter’s. All contain insider references to businesses, landmarks, and individuals from our neighborhood’s past. I’ll share more Art Carpets backstories in future issues of the Chronicle. You can send questions or any insights you might have about them to cliftonccf@gmail.com.