Browse Items (76 total)
International House
The dominating feature of this distinctive, Neo-Classical house is a gabled pediment projecting from the top half-story with a semicircular window, which is supported by two very large Ionic columns. The College renovated and restored the house in…
Koppes-Norris House
From about 1927 to 1942, this architect-designed house with a wrap-around porch was owned by Karl Wilson Gehrkens, head of the Conservatory's school music education program for 35 years. It had several more owners before it was purchased in 1987 by…
Union Street Housing Complex
This complex of eleven new, historically-influenced "houses" (each with 3 apartment units) form a neighborhood cluster that fits well with surrounding vernacular housing from the late 19th and early 20th centuries typical of Oberlin domestic…
Village Housing: 190 Woodland Street
This house has an association with the Oberlin College Library through two members of the Metcalf family. Issac Metcalf, who died in 1898, had 18 children with two successive wives, both of whom died before Issac's death. Several of the daughters and…
Village Housing: 184 Woodland Street
The Cowdery family made this house their home for nearly 60 years, beginning in about 1902. City directories list Mrs. Dryer L. Cowdery as well as Kirke L. and Mary T. Cowdery. Kirke and Mary had two sons: Lawrence T. and Karl M. Kirke Cowdery,…
Village Housing: 170 Woodland Street
This house had many owners and residents before the College purchased it and offered it to students in its Village Housing program. The College demolished it in 2018. The Hosford family lived in this house from 1902 through 1940. Mrs. Mary E. Hosford…
Village Housing: 166 Woodland Street
Much of the ornamentation typically found on an Italianate house of this kind were removed, except for the turned wood spindles supporting the porch, the shaped wooden lintels above the windows, and the ornate brackets over the side door. The flat…
Village Housing: 142 Woodland Street
This home was built in the 1880s, and in 1914 was the home of Mary Breckenridge, mother of Conservatory professor William Breckenridge. She took in boarders, one of whom was a freshman named Edward Willkie. Edward’s older brother Wendell, a…
Village Housing: 136 Woodland Street
This is a typical cross-gabled house built around 1890. The front porch is supported by pairs of Tuscan columns, and wraps around the façade back to the cross-gable on both sides. A very small porch covers the side door on the southwest corner…
Village Housing: 61 Willard Court
This simple, vernacular style house was built circa 1907. It first appears in the city directory in 1908, and was inhabited by postal clerk Charles J. Weeks and his wife Maud A. It is named the Spitter House after its most longstanding resident Carl…
Village Housing: 83 Elmwood Place
This dormer front bungalow was built in 1912 for Karl Frederick Geiser, after whom the house was named, who taught political science at Oberlin College. He lived here around 1916 with his second wife Florence Mary Chaney. His daughter was born in…
Village Housing: 75 Elmwood Place
This home displays elements of the Craftsman/Arts and Crafts style in the use of its stucco exterior, and south facade porches. It was built behind E. Irene Morrison's lot at 137 Elm ca. 1912. Morrison lived here with Helen & Charles B. Martin,…
Village Housing: 76 N. Pleasant Street
This vernacular, gabled ell-plan house, built in about 1904, was named the Kelly or Hipp House, after two of its owners/residents. By 1908, the Kelly (also spelled Kelley) family took up residence in this house and lived here through 1933. George B.…
Village Housing: 70 N. Pleasant Street
This vernacular house was previously known as the Preston or Luikart House, after two of its owner/residents. By 1927, the Preston family had moved into the house and remained here through 1945. Ray Lambert Preston (b. 1886, Pittsfield, Ohio; d.…
Village Housing: 66 N. Pleasant Street
This gabled front, side hallway house is a vernacular or folk house and retains many historic features. City directories and Sanborn Fire Insurance maps do not indicate this house at 66 N. Pleasant Street prior to 1927. However, the older style of…
Village Housing: 62 N. Pleasant Street
City directories and Sanborn Fire Insurance maps do not indicate this house at 62 N. Pleasant Street prior to 1939. However, the historic style of the house (simple Queen Anne) and building materials (sandstone foundation) indicate that the house may…
Village Housing: 284 N. Professor Street
This vernacular, gabled ell house has had many residents, including extended family members and occasional boarders. It has been named the Rose, Channon and Drake House after several of its residents. It served as one of many houses for students in…
Village Housing: 270 N. Professor Street
This house was built in 1905 by Fred Glider, a carpenter. In 1907 carpenter Jacob Mason occupied this house. From 1908 through 1963 Fred and Louise Glider were listed in city directories as occupants. The Gliders passed the house to their daughter…
Village Housing: 201 N. Professor Street
This house has been known as the Mitchell-Sage-Young House, after several of its many owners and residents. It is a vernacular house with Greek Revival elements, and retains some of its historical features despite modern alterations. It is now one of…
Village Housing: 41 N. Pleasant Street
Until recently this house was known as the Sutfin House, after the family that lived here nearly 50 years, from 1937 through 1988. William Roland Sutfin (b. 1897, NY; d. 1957, Oberlin) was an employee at the T. O. Murphy Company, a plumbing and…
Village Housing: 40 N. Pleasant Street
A house has been located at this address since at least 1873, although the current house likely dates to circa 1900. This address was 5 N. Pleasant before the conversion of street numbers in 1894 in Oberlin. It is a vernacular, side hallway house…
Village Housing: 168 N. Main Street
Historically this house was called the Lyman-Child-Winson House, for some of its previous owners. It is a vernacular house which features a combination of Craftsman and transitional Queen Anne and Colonial Revival elements. The front (east) porch,…
Village Housing: 140 N. Main Street
This modest house has historically been called the Martin, Harlow, and Jenkins House, after some of its owners. A detailed account of the successive residents can be found on the Ohio Historic Inventory for this address, accessible from the Oberlin…
Village Housing: 158 W. Lorain Street
This house was built some time between 1896 and 1899, and the earliest known residents were Frank Beckwith, a local jeweler and the assistant postmaster, and his wife Minivieve. In 1933 William Durand, architect, is listed as a resident alongside the…
Village Housing: 200 W. College Street
This modest house has a long history of ownership by private individuals and families before the College acquired it in 2009 for its Village Housing program for students. It was demolished in 2020. It was known for many years as the Drummond House,…
Village Housing: 186 W. College Street
Historically this house was called the Falkner-McMillian House or the Shepard House. The occupant who lived there longest was Harold E. Shephard, and his wife, Bernice, the principal of Prospect Elementary. They lived there for at least 35 years…
Village Housing: 143 W. College Street
There has been a building on this site since before 1870, but this house appears to have been built later. The historical names for the house reflect its various owners: Bonstel, Barnard, Burton-Shurtle, and Molyneaux. The earliest known owner, Mrs.…
Village Housing: 120 E. College Street
This house is situated far back on its lot, behind Tank Hall, originally Tank Home for Missionary Children. Though it was built around 1908 and can be found in the city directories for that year as 120 East College, on the Sanborn Insurance maps it…
Village Housing: 108 E. College Street
Owned by Sarah Cowles Little in 1894, the house was named Judson Cottage, after Professor Judson Smith in the Oberlin Theological Seminary who urged his students to serve abroad. Sarah Cowles Little (1838-1912, A.B. 1859), was a teacher and then…
Village Housing: 69 N. Cedar Street
This house is very plain--a good example of Oberlin’s embrace of austerity. Steps lead up to the front porch, which has a turned-spindle balustrade and a low-pitched roof supported by wooden Doric columns. The front door, at the center of the…
Village Housing: 45 N. Cedar Street
Like the Oakes House at 35 N. Cedar, this is an American Foursquare house, but with Queen Anne elements. Benjamin Talmadge Strong and his wife Mary (nee Camp) were listed here from 1890 to 1904. According to their grandson, Jarvis Strong, Benjamin…
Village Housing: 39 N. Cedar Street
This house, until recently known as the Lampson House, was built around 1900 by the same builder for 45 N. Cedar, Benjamin Talmadge Strong. Fine Arts Professor Eva M. Oakes lived here in 1916 before moving next door to 35 N. Cedar. Then Mrs. E. J.…
Village Housing: 35 N. Cedar Street
This house is typical of many turn of the 20th century, American Foursquare houses. The small oval window in the middle of the second floor facade is typical of the Shingle Style, but this house is a vernacular interpretation. Eva May Oakes, a…
Village Housing: 29 N. Cedar Street
Built sometime during the late 1870s, the first known occupant of this house w as Mrs. Mary J. Hall (1820-?), who resided in the house in 1883. Mrs. Hall was the widow of James Hall, and had two grown children at the time, one of whom (Sophronia) was…
Village Housing: 61 E. Lorain Street
This house was built some time between 1902-1908, and the earliest known resident was Abbot Rawson. His family lived in the house from its building until 1961. He was a custodian at Oberlin College. The house was known as the Rawson House for many…
Village Housing: E.A.R.R.T.H. House
This duplex started as a single house, built before 1877. Then, around 1908, the second house was added on, and lived in by a local jeweler, A.F. Meseke, and dentist, James Dexter, and their families. The house was known as the Dexter House for many…
Village Housing: 140 Elm Street
This house was built in 1873 for William B. Durand, an insurance agent with a long career as town clerk. The Durand family lived here for 70 years. The grandson of the original owner, also named William B. Durand, an architect, divided the 28 rooms…
Village Housing: 51 N. Cedar Street
The Greek Revival farmhouse--two wings flanking a main block with columned portico--was one of America's most popular domestic adaptations of the Greek temple form, and can still be seen gracing the landscape from New England through the South and…
Lewis House
This architect-designed house was built for James R. Severance in 1894. Mr. Severance, an Oberlin graduate, professor and treasurer, lived in the house with his family until his death in 1916. After his death his wife, Mrs. R. G., and daughter,…
Lewis (Edmonia) Center for Women and Transgender People
The Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People is named after Mary Edmonia Lewis, an Oberlin student from 1859-1862 and famed sculptor. It is a collective of students, staff, and administrators who strive to transform existing systems of…
Cranford
Cranford was purchased by the College for use as a women's dormitory and dining hall for men and women in 1946 from Mrs. Bertha Pope Cairns. At the time of purchase Cranford housed 43 women and provided board for 82 men and women. The farm estate,…
Thompson Cottage
The property at 160 North Main Street, privately owned, was purchased by the College in 1913 and equipped as a house of residence for women. From 1913 to 1934 it was known as Keep Annex, furnishing rooming accommodations for sixteen women, who…
West Lodge
From 1927 to 1937, West Lodge at 106 West Lorain Street had been used as an office annex, for the work of the photographic and photostat departments, for the faculty stenographic service, and for three departmental offices. From 1926 to 1929 it was…
White House
The property at 144 North Professor Street, formerly the residence of Mr. A.M. Loveland built in 1902, was purchased by the College in 1931. The house was moved to the site at 160 North Professor Street, was remodelled for use as a house of residence…
Webster Hall
Webster Hall, at 51 South Professor Street, came to the College from the Kindergarten Association in 1932, and was used for the year 1932-33 as a dormitory for women in the Kindergarten Training School. It was remodelled and opened as a college hall…
Pyle Inn
For many years a private dormitory for women, owned by Mrs. Lettie H. Pyle, the property at 158 West College Street was purchased by the College in 1931 and from that time on was operated as a house of residence for women. It furnished rooms for…
Squire Cottage
Nancy Squire Cottage was owned by the Kindergarten Training School as part of a complex comprising Squire and May Cottages, both built in 1870, and a brick connecting structure built by the School in 1922. Squire Cottage had been renovated in 1908.…
Men's Gymnasium (2nd)
The second Men’s Gymnasium was located on the site now occupied by Warner Center. It was a one-story frame building about 75 by 25 feet, built in the spring of 1873 at a cost of $1,000, the money for this purpose being raised by student effort.…
Tank Hall
Tank Hall, formerly known as Tank Home, was erected in 1896 as a home for children of missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It was named for Mrs. Caroline L.A. Tank of Green Bay Wisconsin, who gave a quarter of its…
Root House
The former residence of Professor Azariah S. Root, Oberlin's first professional librarian, at 150 North Professor Street was purchased by the College in 1929 and was remodelled in 1930 to serve as a house of residence for College men. It accommodated…
May Cottage
Under an agreement between the Trustees of the Ohio Kindergarten-Primary Training School and the Trustees of Oberlin College, four cottages belonging to the Kindergarten Training School, May Cottage, Burroughs Cottage, Goodrich House, and Webster…
The Manor
The Persons House, renamed "The Manor," was purchased by the College in January 1929 and rented to College men. By 1941 it was rented to a private family. In the fall of 1945 it was made into an apartment house for married veterans enrolled at the…
Shansi House (Mallory House)
The site of one of the oldest dwellings in the Oberlin village, this gracious house, now known as Shansi House, has undergone many remodellings and bears little resemblance to the original. William Ingersoll, a great-grandson of the theologian…
Grey Gables
This house was purchased by the College in 1946 from Mr. and Mrs. Carl H. Dudley for use as a women's dormitory. It had been operated by the Dudleys as a private women's dormitory and dining hall for men and women prior to purchase by the College. At…
Heusner House
This late 19th century house was a private residence operated as an apartment house by Mrs. William Heusner when the College negotiated for its purchase in 1948. Mrs. Heusner continued to live in the first floor apartment, and the rest of the house…
Geography Building/East Lodge
Beginning in 1929 the house on the property at 86 West Lorain Street was used for the department of Geology and Geography as headquarters for the work in Geography. The house was built in the early 1840s by Professor Henry Cowles and was located on…
Embassy
The house and property at 210 North Professor Street came into the possession of the College by purchase from the Pope sisters, who had conducted it for many years as a private boarding house for college women. This use continued until 1932, when the…
Ellis Cottage
The former home of Professor John Millott Ellis was purchased by the College in 1906. In the summer of 1914 it was remodelled for college purposes and used as a house of residence for women. It accommodated fifteen women, who took their meals…
Dickinson House (1st & 2nd)
Prior to the purchase in 1908 of the private residence property at 166 West College Street, the College had acquired the back ends of lots fronting on West College Street, North Cedar Avenue, and West Lorain Street, and had developed in the area a…
Elmwood Cottage
Built by Professor Giles W. Shurtleff (1831-1904) in 1870, this house passed into the hands of the Kindergarten Association, probably in 1892 when Shurtleff moved to his new house (see Shurtleff Cottage). The Association dubbed it Burroughs Cottage.…
Dascomb Cottage
Dascomb Cottage, formerly a private residence, was named in honor of Marianne P. Dascomb, the first Principal of what was then the Women’s Department, and her husband, Dr. James Dascomb, the first doctor in Oberlin and one of the signers of the…
Music Hall
Music Hall was built in 1842. It was a one-story frame building, 30 by 50 feet, located on the site where Baldwin Cottage now stands. Music Hall was built through the efforts of Professor George N. Allen, the choir of the first Congregational Church,…
Bandstand (1st)
Early photographs of the Oberlin campus indicate a raised platform that appears to be a bandstand, but prior to the 1870s these were typically temporary structures that could be moved to different locations, and covered with canvas. The first…
Ladies Hall (1st)
The first College building for women's lodging, called Ladies Hall, was completed in 1835. It stood on the south side of West College Street between Professor and Main Streets. It was a frame building of three stories, with two wings extending toward…
Fairchild House
The house of President James Harris Fairchild (1817-1902) stood on Elm Street near South Professor Street. It was built in 1841 by the College Farmer and purchased by Fairchild when he was a professor in 1849. During the famous Oberlin-Wellington…
Oberlin Hall
The construction of Oberlin Hall was begun in the summer of 1833, and it was ready for use the following December. This building was known at first as the Boarding House and later as Preparatory Hall. It was then officially named Oberlin Hall. It was…
Colonial Hall
The construction of Colonial Hall was begun in the autumn of 1835 and was completed in the summer of 1836. It was named Colonial Hall because the colonists subscribed nearly half of the cost of the building, and in return were given the privilege of…
Browning House
The Browning House, which stood adjacent to the Allen Memorial Hospital, was a twelve-bed infirmary named in honor of Dr. Charles H. Browning, for many years a prominent physician in Oberlin. This building was so arranged that contagious diseases as…
Botany Laboratory (2nd & 3rd)
From 1891 to 1904 the house built for the Finney family, on the present site of Finney Chapel, had been used for laboratory purposes for the Department of Botany. In 1904 the College remodelled the property at 64 North Professor Street to meet the…
Beacon (1st)
The house that stood at 204 North Professor Street was purchased by the College in 1932. Prior to that date it was called "Parson's House," and had served as a men’s residence house operated by Mrs. A.B. Parsons. It was officially named…
Barr House
The property at 180 West College Street was purchased by the College in 1928, the house having been used for many years as a private residence. It was remodelled for use as a house of residence for Freshman men and was opened by the College in the…
Antlers
The property at 228 North Professor Street, called Antlers, was purchased by the College in 1928 as a part of the proposed Men’s Campus. The house had served previously for many years as a house of residence for men under private management,…
Administration Building (Temporary)
After the College Chapel burned down in 1903, the administrative offices were moved to a frame residence at 122 West College Street. The building contained a two-story brick vault, that would supposedly protect the contents from fire. However,…