Browse Items (48 total)
Orchard Kindergarten Art Faculty Studio
Maynard M. Metcalf, graduate of the class of 1889, had this humble structure built in an apple orchard as a zoology and botany lab in about 1909, as well as a large house on the property as his residence. Metcalf was a professor of zoology at the…
Yellow House
Commonly known as the Yellow House by its color, this modest two-story house with attic dormers is the home of Oberlin's Creative Writing Program. For some years until 2009, it housed the Communications Office, along with the Daub House next door.…
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…
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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…
Wilder Hall
From the College's founding men had lived in boarding houses scattered throughout the town. The College had built dormitories for women, including Talcott and Baldwin, but not for men. This building, constructed from a design by architect Joseph…
Co-education Centennial Memorial Gateway
The Co-education Centennial Memorial Gateway was erected in 1937 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Oberlin College's breaking of the gender barrier in higher education and its subsequent impact on the emancipation of women. On September 6,…
Metcalf House
Metcalf House was built in 1908 by Maynard Metcalf, professor of zoology at the college and also the lead expert witness for the defense at the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' in 1925 (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law). In about 1909 he built…
La Maison Française (French House)
La Maison Française (French House), was built in 1907 by Dr. Lauderdale, a dentist. He and his wife Mabel, an aspiring artist, ran the house as a student boarding house into the 1920s. Beginning September 1, 1930, the Lauderdale residence was…
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…
Severance Hall
Severance Chemical Laboratory, now Severance Hall, was the gift of Louis H. Severance, of Cleveland. The construction was begun in 1899, and the cornerstone was laid May 31, 1900. It was dedicated with appropriate exercises September 26, 1901. Mr.…
Rice Memorial Hall
Constructed in the years 1909 and 1910, Rice Hall was named in commemoration of the life services of Professor Fenelon B. Rice and Mrs. Helen M. Rice. Professor Rice was for thirty-one years the Director of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and to…
Noah Hall
Noah Hall was named in honor of Andrew Hale Noah of Akron, Ohio, for seven years a member of the Board of Trustees, who contributed significant funds towards its construction. Ground was broken for its construction February 16, 1932, and the hall was…
Warner Center for the Performing Arts
Ground was broken for Warner Gymnasium, built of Ohio Sandstone, in August, 1900, and the building was completed in the fall of 1901. It was named in honor of its donors, Dr. and Mrs. Lucien C. Warner, of New York, who provided funds for the building…
Memorial Arch
The Memorial Arch was erected as a memorial to the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who lost their lives in the Boxer uprising in China in 1900. The cornerstone of the Arch was laid October 16, 1902, and it was…
Sherman House
Sherman House was purchased by the College from Professor P.D. Sherman in 1946 or 1947. It was used as a rental property except 1948-49, when it was used as a women's residence as an emergency measure because of the removal of Churchill and Fairchild…
Martin Block
The Martin Block, erected in 1908 by H.J. Martin at 32-34 East College Street, was purchased by the College in 1916. The use for College purposes of a part of the block began in 1919 when the office of the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds was…
Central Heating Plant (1st)
To supply steam heat for college buildings a central Heating Plant was built by the College during the year 1913. This plant included three Babcock and Wilcox water tube boilers of three hundred horsepower capacity each. Nineteen of the largest…
Keep Cottage
The cottage was opened for use in January, 1913, with dormitory accommodations for fifty-two women. It was named in honor of Rev. John Keep and Mrs. Theodore J. Keep. Mr. George M. Clark and his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Keep Clark, contributed funds…
Crane Swimming Pool for Women
The Crane Swimming Pool for Women, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Murray Crane, Jr., and their daughter, Barbara, of Dalton, Mass., stands at the entrance to Galpin Field. The architect was the firm of Walker and Weeks of Cleveland. Ground was…
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…
President's House
Designed by Oberlin College art professor Clarence Ward, this house was built for physics professor Samuel R. Williams. The contractor, J.B. Tucker, completed the house in 1920. Williams left Oberlin College for a position at Amherst College in 1924.…
Haskell Fountain
The white Carrera marble, red porphyry and bronze fountain in front of the Allen Memorial Art Museum is a memorial to Katharine Wright Haskell by her husband, Henry "Harry" J. Haskell. Both Katharine and Harry were students at Oberlin; Katharine…
Allen Memorial Art Building
A gift from the estate of Oberlin physician Dudley Peter Allen (OC 1875) in 1915 provided the College with an opportunity to create an art building to showcase its art collections and support the art curriculum. Dr. Allen admired Cass Gilbert's…
Finney Memorial Chapel
In 1903 College president Henry Churchill King approached Frederick Norton Finney, former President Charles Grandison Finney’s son, about construction of a new chapel to honor the former, illustrious president. F.N. Finney responded favorably…
Carnegie Building (Carnegie Library)
The Carnegie Building, originally Carnegie Library, gift of Andrew Carnegie, is located at the northeast corner of Professor and Lorain Streets. The building is constructed of Amherst sandstone; its dimensions were originally 135 by 110 feet. Patton…
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…
Barrows House
The former residence of President John Henry Barrows, erected in 1901, was purchased by the College in 1916 and remodelled for the purpose of a house of residence for Conservatory women. It provided accommodations for fourteen students and table…
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is one of several businesses in the Hobbs Block on East College Street. Built by William Hobbs in 1913, this building housed Oberlin’s first 300 seat theater. For years, the eastern storefront was the well-appointed Hobbs…
Allen Memorial Hospital/Mercy Allen Hospital
The Allen Memorial Hospital was opened for the care of patients October 13, 1925. The hospital is a joint memorial to Dr. Dudley P. Allen, of the class of 1875, for many years the leading surgeon of Cleveland, Ohio, and to his father, Dr. Dudley…
Cox Administration Building
Construction of the sandstone Cox Administration Building began in 1913 and was completed in 1915. It was named in memory of Jacob Dolson Cox, an Oberlin graduate, Union army general, and Ohio politician, by one of Cox’s sons, J.D. Cox. The…
Theological Quadrangle (Bosworth Hall, Asia House, Fairchild Chapel)
The quadrangle complex, designed by Cass Gilbert and his son, and opened in 1931, was built for the College's Graduate School of Theology, closed in 1965. The complex, comprising Bosworth Hall, Shipherd Hall, and Fairchild Chapel, was designed to…