Browse Items (73 total)
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…
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: 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: 197 W. Lorain Street
The core of this house was built in 1854; many additions have been made to it since then. In 1862, Sela G. Wright, an ardent missionary to the Chippewa Indians in Red Lake, Minnesota and a contributor to the abolitionist movement, bought the house.…
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: 190 W. College Street
This modest brick house was built before 1873, and its earliest recorded resident was a Reverend W.O. Hart. It has been through a series of residents since then, perhaps boarders in the community. The house appears to have been a rental home from the…
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…
Charles Martin Hall House
Originally a beautiful mansion, this house is presently used by the College as Village Housing for students. It is historically significant for its association with an important American industrialist, Charles Martin Hall, and the process he…
Weltzheimer/Johnson House
The Weltzheimer/Johnson House stands as another expression of Frank Lloyd Wright's answer to the demand for beautiful and affordable middle-class homes in post-World War II America. Pairing innovation with basic owner-builder construction materials…
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…
Stewart Hall
Stewart Hall was a two-story brick building, used for many years as a private residence. It was first rented by the College in 1880, and was purchased March 10, 1881 at a cost of $5,000, which included an additional lot. Stewart Hall was a dormitory…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Keep Home
Keep Home was built in 1839. It was the home of Rev. John Keep (1781-1870) and Lydia Keep who owned and occupied the house for many years. In January, 1889, it was donated to the College by Theodore J. Keep and Mrs. Mary A. Keep, "... to be used as a…
Faculty Club
The house at 105 Elm Street was used by the College as a faculty club from 1919 to 1939. It was later made into apartments for faculty and staff, known as "Currier Apartments." The building was razed in the summer of 1963. Source Oberlin College…
Daub House
This plain brick house, built during the Civil War, was updated later in the 19th century with the decorative wooden porch and bargeboard. It was called the Bailey-Gager Place, named for the Massachusetts shoemaker, William Bailey, who built it in…
Finney House
In 1835 the College built, on the present site of Finney Chapel on Professor Street, a two-story brick building, “spacious and comely.” This building was erected as a home for Professor Charles Grandison Finney. Sometime during the year…
Anchorage
This house was used as a private residence, the last occupant being Professor Guy C. Throner. The College opened it as The Anchorage, a residence for men, in the fall of 1937. It was last used as a college dormitory in 1944-45. It was transferred to…
Beacon (2nd)
The men's dormitory called Beacon was first located at 204 North Professor Street. In the summer of 1937 the house at 195 Woodland was used as the second location for Beacon. Beginning in 1947, the house was used for apartments and later as rental…
Shurtleff Cottage
Shurtleff Cottage (actually a large house) was built on a large parcel of land along the back of Plum Creek by Giles W. Shurtleff in 1892 for his home with his wife Mary Burton and their children. He hired the architects Weary and Kramer of Akron to…
Village Housing: 137 Elm Street
This house, known for many years as Gulde House, was leased by the College in 1935 for a house of residence for women. It had previously been operated for many years as a rooming and dining hall under private auspices. It had rooming accommodations…
Goodrich House
Goodrich House came into possession of the College in 1932 from the Kindergarten Association. It continued to serve the Kindergarten-Primary Training School through the year 1932-33. The building was remodelled in the summer of 1933 for use as a…
Geology Laboratory (2nd)
The house located at 120 North Professor Street, formerly a private residence belonging to Professor William B. Chamberlain, was remodelled in 1915 as a laboratory for the department of Geology. The Geology museum on the second floor contained…
Geology Laboratory (1st)
During the years between 1907 and 1915 the Geology Laboratory and Museum occupied quarters in a house on North Main Street on the site of the Allen Memorial Art Building. The building occupied, known as the “Squire House,” had been moved…
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…
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.…
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.…
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…
Churchill Cottage
This brick house with a frame porch was built in about 1884, and was purchased by the College in 1913. It was named in honor of Charles Henry Churchill, a professor at Oberlin College for 48 years who owned the house. It was remodelled in the summer…
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…
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…
Allen House
The George N. Allen House (left), situated directly south of Baldwin Cottage (right), was purchased from I.A. Webster by the College in 1886. Upon purchase, it was named after Professor George Nelson Allen, who had built the house in 1870. Allen…
Allencroft
Built in 1861 by Ralph Plumb, a hero of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, Allencroft was occupied beginning in 1865 by Dr. Dudley Allen. In 1899 the property was given to the College by Allen’s son, Dudley Peter Allen and his sister Emily Allen…
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,…