Does anyone know the story behind these Prospect Ave. beauties? When were they built, why weren't more built?

I don't know much about their history, but I do know it's a bed and breakfast now. Their website says the building was built in 1874. If that's true, it has to be one of the oldest buildings in Cleveland.

 

http://www.brownstoneinndowntown.com/index.html

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g50207-d111528-Reviews-Brownstone_Inn_Downtown-Cleveland_Ohio.html

 

Here's a little write up Freshwater did on them a couple years ago:

 

http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/features/hiddencleveland010914.aspx

Those appear to have true english basements.  Somewhat rare to find in Cleveland.  Super cool.

I've often wondered about these too. Looking forward to hearing some informed replies!

 

I've always assumed that they are the survivors of what was once common housing stock in that part of town. The way things are going they *should* be insanely desirable and expensive in a few years time...

Something tells me they aren't "survivors" but rather, outliers. If you look at other housing stock of similar age on that street that's still surviving, it is mostly italianate detached single family mansions. These truly are one of a kind in Cleveland

^Yeah, I think that's exactly right. There were at least a few terraces on lower Euclid during the Millionaire's Row days (the south side of Euclid was always more densely built), but for fancy housing, this was a pretty uncommon building type in a city of long avenues and flat, open land.

 

Their website says the building was built in 1874. If that's true, it has to be one of the oldest buildings in Cleveland.

 

Depends what you mean by "one of the oldest." There are definitely some older buildings downtown (Hoyt Block, Hilliard Block, Old Stone Church (though altered since)) and several older buildings in Ohio city (St. John's, some houses on Clinton and Franklin) and scattered throughout other neighborhoods. But not all that many. Considering that the city had almost 400K residents as of 1900, it always amazes me how little of 19th century Cleveland has survived.

They were outliers. They were the only ones built. My dad told me a story when I was young that they were going to build more of them but an economic downturn (before the Great Depression) halted it.

This row, now collectively known as the Brownstone Inn B & B, is a real beaut; perhaps the most physically attractive multi-unit dwelling in the entire metro area.  It's just too bad it's located in an out-of-the-way semi light industrial area, though this neighborhood been becoming a little more residential in recent years.  There are a number of buildings in Cleveland that predate the 1870s; many we don't think of.  I'm amazed at the number of early Victorian commercial and mixed-use neighborhood buildings exist along major streets like Lorain and Detroit.  Sadly, we often don't realize how old they are until the burn down.  The Cozad-Bates mansion, an Underground Railroad stop for escaping slaves from the South, is slowly being restored into a museum; its first section was built in 1853 with an addition built by the original owner's son in 1872.  It's noted as the only pre-Civil War structure still standing in University Circle.

 

btw, Dunham Tavern is listed being built in 1842.  Wikipedia (good but not the Gospel) lists Dunham as being Cleveland's oldest building east of E. 55th.  I'm not aware of any buildings in Cleveland that are older than DT.

...also, some of the Ohio City homes are early Victorian, too.  An ex patriot Shakerite "empty-nester" couple moved into one of those small, brick cottages along Carroll Ave near St. Ignatius H.S. a few years ago.  IIRC they stated it was built in the 1860s. 

Some of the oldest developed parts of Cleveland are actually away from the lake and farther upriver because the area near the lake was too swampy and had too many mosquitoes that carried malaria and other deadly diseases. So Newburg and Brooklyn Center had and still have some of the oldest housing. I covered Brooklyn Center for Sun and wrote about some old houses along Denison Avenue which was previously a thousands-year-old Indian trail (as were most of our early roads). Some of the houses I wrote about on Denison dated from the 1840s and 1850s. They were built by the children of the first settlers who came from Connecticut, who were veterans of the Revolutionary War and were awarded land in the Connecticut Western Reserve because the federal government had no money to pay them for their wartime service. The most sought-after land they were awarded in lieu of money was near growing settlements like Newburg and Brooklyn or uphill from the river west of Cleveland Public Square.

Prospect was almost as affluent as Euclid Ave, but with smaller lots. The houses on the south side of Euclid which backed-up to these brownstones were comparable in size and design to what was on Prospect. Because the houses were smaller, more of them are extant. I personally think there are enough residential structures left in the urban fabric to build more, such as infill. I would hope that, if that ever happened, the design would be less contemporary and more of a continuation of these houses.

 

BTW, even that elm tree in those photos is an ancient and protected landmark with its own plaque.

^ I've never seen that picture of Prospect before. Imagine if those homes were never lost. It's a shame that our best residential architecture was just obliterated.

^^Wow, good stuff.  That first shot looks like many Philadelphia streets today!! ... It's truly depressing when we ponder all the beautiful, dense architecture and neighborhoods, like this, Cleveland just threw away.  That Brownstone row was obviously 1 small piece of a much larger residential neighborhood that simply disappeared.  On many levels, the zest for industry that, of course, made Cleveland grow to what it is was sometimes reckless and destructive.

Let's not forget that Philadelphia was already a 250-years-old city and its central business district was well established by the time housing like that was built in the late-1800s. So that era of housing development was built farther from the city's geographic center than was the case in Cleveland. But Cleveland was quickly catching up in its growth which put more of its 1850-1900 era housing in the path of commercial expansion than was the case in Philadelphia -- except perhaps on downtown Philly's near-north side.

Let's also not forget that the first photo I posted is where the Rose Building now stands. Sometimes residential districts simply gave way to something much bigger.

As much as I love the Rose Building I would take that row of brownstone's instead which may have stretched all the way to E4th or Ontario

Let's also not forget that the first photo I posted is where the Rose Building now stands. Sometimes residential districts simply gave way to something much bigger.

 

That was my point, but from historical/geographical perspective. Draw concentric circles like trees rings around where a city began to grow and mature. By the late 1800s, Philadelphia had more tree rings but all bunched together than Cleveland had so when big buildings started going up in major U.S. cities after the turn of the 19th-20th century, Philadelphia had more tree rings where its CBD then stood and small/medium-sized commercial structures gave way to big commercial buildings. In Cleveland, these great old townhouses along lower Euclid and Prospect didn't transition as much to small/medium-sized commercial structures first because Cleveland grew faster than Philadelphia in each cities' first 100 years and in different eras of building technologies. So Cleveland's inner residential areas went straight to big commercial buildings like the Rose, Hippodrome, Cleveland Athletic Club, and others.

^ ^^ ^^^  Good points, all.  Yes, the specific location where that beautiful row is where the Rose Building, a handsome office building, now sits as a result of Cleveland's expansion from a small town into a major city.  However, even if you look eastward where downtown's office buildings peter out, there's nothing but mainly parking lots, cheap commercial and light industrial structures.  The photo is at E. 9th, but  the Brownstones of similar, high-Victorian architecture are all the way out at E. 36th meaning there was probably a who lot of similar residential buildings that met the wrecking ball and not for downtown office buildings, which is a shame.

Prospect was almost as affluent as Euclid Ave, but with smaller lots. The houses on the south side of Euclid which backed-up to these brownstones were comparable in size and design to what was on Prospect. Because the houses were smaller, more of them are extant. I personally think there are enough residential structures left in the urban fabric to build more, such as infill. I would hope that, if that ever happened, the design would be less contemporary and more of a continuation of these houses.

 

BTW, even that elm tree in those photos is an ancient and protected landmark with its own plaque.

 

Holy crap, what a loss. Those photos remind me of parts of Chicago's Lincoln Park.  Cleveland would be a completely different (and substantially prettier) city if it managed to hold on to more of its historic building stock. :-/

^Yep.  And Chicago, unlike Philadelphia, is a contemporary of Cleveland's in terms of being a post Colonial city that expanded/exploded during the late 19th Century Industrial Revolution.  Chicago was/is a model of urban planning growth primarily with planner's early decision to keep industrial growth inland away from the valuable lakefront which was maintained for primarily high-density residential development.  And you're right, those large swaths of late 19th century homes in Lincoln park, adjacent to downtown Chicago are still there with no factories anywhere in sight... Cleveland, on the other hand, had much more haphazard commercial growth with freight rail lines circling downtown and along the lakefront spawning heavy industrial development.  Interestingly, as the 1919 Subway Commission report noted in its analysis of Cleveland at that time, residential development often sprouted up near these factories whereby workers could generally walk to work.  And in that sense, the subway analyst noted that Cleveland was a bit abnormal and trickier in terms of developing subway routes because of our city's unique travel patterns.

 

... and btw, I don't say this to knock Cleveland, because Cleveland's historical industrial growth was fairly typical of the time.  America in general was, and still is in many aspects, guided in its urban growth more  by commerce interests rather than by a people-centered approach.  Chicago was more the exception than the rule and some of it can be ironically attributed to the Great Fire of 1871 when planners, essentially, got a clean slate on which to plan and build for the city's mushrooming population.

What's particularly sad is that we've lose all this historic building stock, and yet there's almost certainly much less occupied floor area in greater downtown today than there was in, say, 1928. Other than 4th Street, what was once a "dense underbrush" has been almost completely burned out.

Some of the oldest developed parts of Cleveland are actually away from the lake and farther upriver because the area near the lake was too swampy and had too many mosquitoes that carried malaria and other deadly diseases. So Newburg and Brooklyn Center had and still have some of the oldest housing. I covered Brooklyn Center for Sun and wrote about some old houses along Denison Avenue which was previously a thousands-year-old Indian trail (as were most of our early roads). Some of the houses I wrote about on Denison dated from the 1840s and 1850s. They were built by the children of the first settlers who came from Connecticut, who were veterans of the Revolutionary War and were awarded land in the Connecticut Western Reserve because the federal government had no money to pay them for their wartime service. The most sought-after land they were awarded in lieu of money was near growing settlements like Newburg and Brooklyn or uphill from the river west of Cleveland Public Square.

 

If anyone is interested there is a book available from the Stockyards, Clark-Fulton, Brooklyn Centre CDO that was put together by the BC Historical Society and published in 2004. It is titled Reflections from Brooklyn Centre. Obviously it is about the history of BC. Its founding, history, architecture, oral histories, etc. One can contact the SCFBC CDO for more info at 216-961-9073. I know there are still copies available.

 

Whenever I drive down Denison Ave. between the Jennings Freeway and up to Fulton Rd., I am amazed at the beauty of the architecture of so many of the homes that are still standing of which were built as KJP said in the 1840's and 1850's. Yes the majority of them are in need of tender loving care (restoration), but at least 90% of them are still standing. If only this could be the CLE's next comeback neighborhood. Additionally, the majority of BC was actually built between 1875 - 1915, and 90% of these homes are also still standing.

 

One sad note though is that the Cleveland Landmarks Commission has already approved the demolition of the Wirth Home at 3119 Denison Ave. A Home that IMO (many others too) should be saved from the wrecking ball. There is still hope though as the Art House which owns the home currently does not have the funds available to do the domo.

 

http://www.brooklyncentre.net/

 

http://media.fyre.co/OoaqFZWSKKhLALbx6q2i_Brooklyncentre1.JPG

 

http://media.fyre.co/fvRtgtX2TUG7UXnH9LUO_Brooklyncentre3.JPG