Cedar Glen Apartments facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Cedar Glen Apartments
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11432 Cedar Glen Parkway, the easternmost building in the Cedar Glen complex
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 Location in Cleveland
Location in Ohio
Location in the United States
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| Location | 11424-11432 Cedar Glen Parkway, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
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| Built | 1927 |
| Architect | Samuel H. Weis |
| Architectural style | Georgian Revival architecture |
| NRHP reference No. | 94000594 |
| Added to NRHP | June 17, 1994 |
The Cedar Glen Apartments is a historic apartment building in Cleveland, Ohio. It's located in the University Circle neighborhood. A famous local architect named Samuel H. Weis designed the building, and it was finished in 1927. At first, it had fancy apartments and was like a grand entrance to the more exclusive area of Cleveland Heights. In 1992, people worried the building might be torn down. But new owners bought it and turned the apartments into condominiums.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1994. This means it's recognized as an important historical site.
Contents
How the Cedar Glen Area Grew
The Land Around Cedar Glen
Cleveland is a city right on the shore of Lake Erie. A few miles inland, there's a big hill called the Portage Escarpment. This hill separates the flat land near the lake from a higher area. This escarpment also forms a natural border between Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Two natural valleys, or ravines, helped people get up this big hill. One was the Doan Brook ravine, and the other was Cedar Brook ravine, often called Cedar Glen.
For a long time, until about 1890, the top of this hill was mostly empty. There were a few farms and orchards. A narrow, bumpy dirt road ran through Cedar Glen. In the early 1800s, stone quarries operated on top of the hill. A small railroad was even built in 1834 to carry stone from the quarries down to Public Square.
Early Buildings on Cedar Glen Hill
In 1869, some Cleveland business people created the Lake View Cemetery. It was a large area that crossed the border between Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, Ohio. In 1873, John D. Rockefeller bought a lot of land near the cemetery. He later sold some of it to Marcus and Mary Montgomery. They built a hotel there, saying a natural spring on the hill could help people get well. Rockefeller bought the property back in 1877 and used the hotel as his summer home.
In 1880, Dr. Nathan Hardy Ambler and his business partner, Daniel O. Caswell, opened a health resort hotel at the bottom of Cedar Glen. It was called the Blue Rock Spring House and stayed open until 1908. This resort became very popular. Because of this, in 1884, the Cleveland Railway Company built an electric streetcar line that went to the foot of Cedar Glen.
Planned Communities and Streetcars
In 1890, Patrick Calhoun bought a large wooded area on top of Cedar Hill. He started building a planned community for wealthy people called Euclid Heights. At the same time, brothers Edmund and William Walton began another development nearby called Cedar Heights. Calhoun knew his community needed a better way for people to get up the hill than just dirt roads. He decided an electric streetcar line up Cedar Glen was the best idea.
In 1896, Calhoun gave some of his land to the city of Cleveland. In return, he was allowed to build a double-track streetcar line up Cedar Glen. That same year, the Cleveland Railway Company extended its streetcar line to serve Calhoun's new Euclid Heights development. By 1900, the streetcars had made Euclid Heights a very popular place to live.
Work started in 1897 to turn the bumpy dirt road up Cedar Glen into a wide, modern parkway. This road was named Cedar Glen Parkway. It was several hundred feet wide and about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) long, and it was almost finished by the end of 1898.
In 1906, another railway company, the Cleveland and Eastern Railway Company, started running its trains through Cedar Glen. By 1920, Cedar Glen Parkway was very busy with cars. In 1925, the Cleveland Railway Company added another streetcar line at the top of Cedar Glen. All these roads and streetcar services made Cedar Glen a very important way to travel between Cleveland and Cleveland Heights.
Cedar Glen Apartments Building
Building the Apartments
Even though the Cleveland Heights side of Ambleside Drive had many buildings by 1910, the Cleveland side (where the Cedar Glen Apartments are) was still empty. The first building there, Ambleside Apartments, was built in 1913. It was a four-story building with 16 apartments.
In 1925, plans began for the Cedar Glen Apartments. The famous local architect Samuel E. Weis owned and designed the building. It was one of the first apartment buildings built in Cleveland in several years. The building was located just inside Cleveland, facing Cedar Glen Parkway. It was set higher than the road, giving it a great view of places like the Cleveland Museum of Art and University Circle. The Plain Dealer newspaper called it one of the "most unusual sites" in the city.
The building had a long front facing Cedar Glen Parkway and another side facing Ambleside Drive. The building's driveway was set back from the parkway, and there was plenty of empty land behind it for privacy. The outside of the building was built in the Georgian Revival style. The first floor was made of Indiana Limestone, and the upper floors were brick with limestone details. The windows also had stone trim. The building's frame was steel, and the walls, floors, and roof were made of strong reinforced concrete. The top of the building had a decorative railing with stone pots. The building had a garden in the front.
The apartment complex had a six-story central tower with an elevator. It also had two four-story wings that you could walk up (meaning they had stairs but no elevator). Each part of the building had its own entrance. There was also an underground garage for 40 cars, with stairs leading directly into the building.
When it was first built, the Cedar Glen Apartments had 27 units. They ranged from four to eight rooms, and some even had rooms for servants. These were meant to be very fancy apartments, so all the rooms were extra large. Each bedroom had its own bathroom and big windows. Every apartment had a fireplace, lots of closets, and modern appliances like a frost-free refrigerator and a dishwasher. The central tower had a huge, two-story penthouse on top with 12 rooms and six bathrooms. Each room in the penthouse had very tall ceilings.
The Cedar Glen Apartments cost $650,000 to build and were finished in July 1927.
History of the Building
After the Cedar Glen Apartments opened, many rich and successful people moved in. These included lawyers, business owners, community leaders, and doctors. It became one of the most popular places to live in Cleveland. People thought it was a landmark because of its location, the famous people who lived there, its large apartments, and its beautiful design. The Cedar Glen Apartments showed what luxury apartment living was like between 1910 and 1930. In the 1920s, over half of all Americans lived in apartments, and they were seen as just as good as houses.
In 1931, the cities of Cleveland and Cleveland Heights made Cedar Glen Parkway much wider. This brought more traffic and noise closer to the apartments. The apartments were sold in December 1931 to a company from Chicago.
In 1947, the Cleveland Transit System suggested building a new train station at the bottom of Cedar Hill. Construction on the station began in May 1954, and it opened on March 15, 1955. The new station was only a three-minute walk from the Cedar Glen Apartments.
In 1951, two investors bought the Cedar Glen Apartments. A big fire happened in the building on February 27, 1956. The fire started in the kitchen of the empty penthouse. Firefighters had trouble putting it out because the building was so strongly built. The fire caused $150,000 in damage to the central tower.
The Cedar Glen Apartments were sold again in October 1960 for $400,000. The new owners made many improvements to the building the next year.
Turning into Condominiums
By the 1980s, the Cedar Glen Apartments were not as popular as they used to be. The building was getting old and needed a lot of repairs.
In 1991, a retirement community nearby bought the Cedar Glen Apartments. They wanted to tear down the building to build a parking garage. But the people living in the Cedar Glen Apartments didn't want this to happen. They worked together to try and buy the building themselves to save it. However, they couldn't get enough money.
In 1993, the retirement community agreed to sell the Cedar Glen Apartments to a local law firm for $1.2 million. The new owners planned to turn the building into condominiums. To help save the building, the city of Cleveland named Cedar Glen Apartments a Cleveland Landmark. The owners also worked to get the building recognized as a National Historic Site. This helped them get special tax credits to pay for repairs.
The renovation and repair of the building cost over $3.5 million. Three apartments were combined, leaving the building with 27 condominium units. Each condo was renovated one at a time, and buyers could choose different improvements.
In July 1995, a group called the Cleveland Restoration Society honored two residents, Michael and Debbie May. They were recognized for their efforts to save the historic building and for helping to arrange its sale to the law firm.
