In ninety years, three prominent Cleveland families have called 2540 Fairmount Boulevard home. The story of this house mirrors that of Euclid Golf, an early planned suburban development that benefited from the eastward spread of Cleveland's wealthy off of Euclid Avenue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continued to serve as a favored address for professionals and industrialists.
The first owner of 2540 Fairmount was Alwin C. Ernst, founder of the public accounting firm Ernst & Ernst, the forerunner of Ernst & Young. Ernst is credited with pioneering the idea that accounting information could be used to make business decisions and with inventing management consulting. Born in Cleveland in 1881, he attended West High School and a business college, and then worked as a bookkeeper for the Audit Company. In 1903, he founded Ernst & Ernst with his older brother Theodore, who left the company three years later. Alwin Ernst went on to build the business to more than 50 offices in the United States and two in Canada. When Ernst died suddenly after collapsing in the Union Club on May 13, 1948, Cleveland Mayor Thomas A. Burke said, "No matter what occasion in Cleveland called for a civic group to help out, you could count on Mr. Ernst to be in the group."
The second owners of 2540 Fairmount were John and Susanna Carlin. John Carlin was a lawyer who had grown up on Millionaires' Row. His father, Anthony, had been a pioneer in the steel rivet business and was one of the last millionaires to build on Euclid Avenue. Susanna came from humble circumstances. Her mother was widowed and raised ten children on her own. They met at the Guardian Building. He was working as a lawyer at the firm Henderson, Quail, Barkley and Schneider. She was one of the building's elevator operators. Their fairytale wedding in St. John's Cathedral in downtown Cleveland was one of the most significant social events of 1941. The Carlin's moved from 3233 Euclid to their Euclid Golf home in 1950. When John Carlin died in December 1973, 2540 Fairmount was valued at $95,000 and his estate was valued in excess of $7 million.
Patrick Parker of Parker Hannifin Corporation, and his wife Madeline, were the third owners. They purchased the house in 1985 for $330,000.
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]]>Many Cleveland-area residents are familiar with Fairmount Boulevard, the beautiful, winding thoroughfare that treks east from near the top of Cedar Hill in Cleveland Heights. The turreted, half-timbered French Eclectic mansion that sits on an irregular triangle of rockbound land at the intersection of Cedar Road and Fairmount Boulevard forms the de facto gateway to a beautiful Cleveland Heights neighborhood known as Euclid Golf. The house also was the home of Euclid Golf's developer, Barton Roy Deming. It sits halfway between what were, at one time, the 9th and 11th holes of an 18-hole golf course that Patrick Calhoun built as an amenity for his Euclid Heights allotment.
For barely a decade, the property that became the Euclid Golf allotment was an actual golf course sitting on land that quickly became too valuable and attractive to developers to remain in its present form. Thus, in 1912, the prestigious Euclid Golf Club, located partially on land owned by John D. Rockefeller, was disbanded. At that time, Barton Deming convinced Rockefeller that the upper nine holes of JDR's portion south of Cedar could be transformed into one of finest residential neighborhoods in the country. Deming's plan called for a grand boulevard on either side of the streetcar right-of-way that would connect with the Van Sweringen brothers' Shaker Village to the east. Deming relied on Rockefeller's influence and prestige, as well as his bankroll, to develop Euclid Golf.
Traveling up Fairmount Boulevard, it is easy to marvel at the beauty and majesty of the homes, as well as the grace of Fairmount's curvilinear path, the majestic oak tress that line the sidewalks, and the row of flowering trees on the median. Harder to imagine is that this area was once largely treeless and, from 1902 to 1912, was the heart of a golf course. Try to envision the Club's formal entrance-way at the site where the Alcazar Hotel now stands at Derbyshire and Surrey Roads. From there, a winding driveway meandered southeast to roughly the corner of Derbyshire and Norfolk roads. This is where the clubhouse stood. From there, duffers would tee off and play an 18-hole course that ran more or less counter-clockwise nearly to Euclid Heights Boulevard on the north and (what are now) South Overlook Road on the west, West St. James Drive on the south and Demington Drive on the east. In addition to crossing Cedar Road, golfers would have to play around Grandview and Bellfield roads, (built in the 1890s) which composed Cedar Heights, the area's first residential neighborhood.
Perhaps the greater challenge was trying to play 18 holes on Sunday. When Rockefeller assented to the golf links' creation, he stipulated that no one could play the portion of the course on his land on a Sunday. Thus, Sunday golfers played the other nine holes twice!
Today, part of the land upon which the Euclid Clubhouse sat is a municipal parking lot on the northeast corner of Cedar and Norfolk roads, used by apartment dwellers just down the hill. The only reminder of the area's onetime use is the adoption of Deming's appellation Euclid Golf when the National Register of Historic Places listed the neighborhood in 2002.
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