A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Hausers. In the sharp bend of Cedar was the Haven property-a large frame house occupying a large tractof land. Houses had already been built on both sides of Lathrop Place. On the north side of Cedar, pastDiehn’s Candy store was a large old brick-still there. Most of the houses that are there now had beenbuilt. Next to the corner of Cary is the house that I always knew had been built off the same plan as ours.At the corner was the lovely big frame home of the Neuzel family-the house still there but the front yardnow filled with apartments. Across Cary were two frame houses. The first one still there, the secondbelongingto a member of the Forbes family, has been replaced with an apartment building. Next at thesharp turn was the (William T.) Simpson mansion (1750 Cedar Ave.), its front lawn extending all alongCedar to the second turn. Around the turn, well back from the street, was a beautiful white brick mansionwith big pillars on the front. The rest of the street was part of the Peter G. Thomson grounds. The houseson the south side of that part of Cedar that are there now had all been built by that time. The first one fromLathrop Place is very old-we always referred to it as Mary Steele’s house.The Thomson mansion, Laurel Court, was always an important landmark in College Hill. Very fewpeople, except their friends, ever got inside it. There were two greenhouses on Lantana opposite Marlowe.The one raising vegetable plants belonged to the Reeses. Mr. Corbet’s had flowers only. Mother alwaysbought plants from him. He was the head gardener for Thomson and one time he invited us to come upthere and see the Thomson gardens. They were beautiful and I think it was the first time I ever saw theflower, lantana. After we walked all through the gardens he took us into the house and showed us thebeautiful atrium area with trees reaching up to the glass topped roof. It was an experience I will neverforget.Laurel Court took up the whole area between Cedar and Oakwood. Across Oakwood on that sidewas a large frame belonging, I believe, to Crosley’s parents. Next came several more houses. The one Iremember was the lovely old cottage almost hidden by a screening of blue spruce. Then the Aiken placeat the next corner. There is another very old house in the block before you get to North Bend Road. Onthe south side of Belmont beginning at Glenview, the houses there now were all built in my memory.Next to where the line used to cross Belmont at the foot of the hill is a very old house (part of it theoriginal log, the Witherby house) sitting way back from the street with a swimming pool in front of itbelonging to Reno Runck. Just past it near the street is a lovely white colonial, where the Benedicts lived.Mr. Benedict was a professor at the University of Cincinnati and his daughter Jean was a classmate ofmine. Both were killed when his auto skidded in front of a street car on Ludlow Avenue. There were afew more houses between that and North Bend Road.When I was in the sixth or seventh grade the school gave a program at the Town Hall. We weregiven tickets to sell. I decided to try my luck on North Bend road. One of the first places I stopped wasthe big mansion east of Lantana, where Judge Coleman Avery lived. He came to the door and bought aticket, but I didn’t have change and stopped on the way back to give it to him. Sometime after that we sawin the newspaper where he shot his wife and then committed suicide. Opposite Lantana was the CrawfordHome for aged African American men. East were fields, a lane leading back to Judge Avery’s stable andrace track, where we used to go on a Sunday afternoon to watch the horses. There were three large oldhouses in large grounds from there until you got to Daly Road. At the corner of Lantana and North Bendin an old house a classmate of mine, Marie Vogele, lived. In the last house before Judge Avery’s a friendof mother’s, Mrs. Holman, lived. I remember she had gooseberries along her fence.There weren’t many houses along Argus Road. One house not far from North Bend way back fromthe road was the Gray, the florists, home. There were two or three old houses north of Buengers. Nextpast Buengers was a house high up on the hill opposite Cedar Avenue. I can’t remember the name of thefamily but they were from Europe and had ovens in the yard where they baked bread. Next was a laneleading my way back to a house you couldn’t see from the road. Then came the brick house where ourpostman, Mr. Zimmer, lived. I think the next thing was the big pear orchard reaching to the corner ofGroesbeck Road. There were several old houses on the west side of Argus-I think most of them belongedto the Wrenn family. About half way along was a path leading to a huge chestnut tree.When I was quite small I had whooping cough. It was a very hot summer and my parents moved mylittle bed out onto the front porch because of the heat. There was no air-conditioning in those days and234