Graced with a particularly rhythmic and memorable address – 12345 Cedar Road – Doctors' Hospital was actually a converted eight-story apartment building: the former Edgehill Apartments. The structure stood slightly south and east of what are now the Buckingham Condominiums at the crest of Cedar Hill.
Transformed from a residence to a medical facility, Doctors' Hospital opened its doors in August 1946, following nearly ten years of fundraising by physicians associated with the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland. The hospital was governed by a new non-profit entity: The Cleveland Memorial Foundation, Inc. By the mid 1950s, Doctors' Hospital had more than 200 beds and a variety of medical specialties, including pediatrics, osteopathy and oncology.
Despite its value to patients and the community, Doctors' Hospital survived little more than 20 years, with myriad growth plans thwarted by space and zoning constraints. In 1953, a proposal to double the facility's size (including a proposed school of nursing and a basement bomb shelter) was rejected by the Cleveland Heights building commissioner and the City's Board of Zoning Appeals. According to The Sun Press, the reason (painfully familiar to many Cleveland Heights residents and visitors) was a lack of parking. Three years later, hospital officials unsuccessfully sought to build a second Doctors' Hospital in South Euclid at the corner of Belvoir and Monticello – property the city had originally purchased to use as a dump. By 1960, hospital officials also were eyeing building sites in Solon and Twinsburg, neither of which panned out.
The beginning of the end came in 1964, when the US Public Health Service announced that $1.7 million in grants would be made available to relocate Doctors' Hospital to 15 acres of donated land in Mayfield Heights east of SOM Center Road. In 1966, the City of Cleveland Heights announced plans to replace Doctors' Hospital with a fire station, as well as a new city hall (to replace the outdated building where Honda of Cleveland Heights now stands on Mayfield Road). The next year, the City bought the Doctors' Hospital building and land for $675,000. Shortly after, construction began on the Mayfield Heights facility, tentatively named Doctors' Hospital. The complex, eventually christened Hillcrest Hospital, opened in November 1968, with 31 patients transferred by ambulance from the doomed Doctors' Hospital in Cleveland Heights.
Doctors' Hospital was demolished in February 1969 and the new fire station and city hall were built elsewhere. Most of the Doctors' Hospital site, somewhat ironically, is now a municipal parking lot.
]]>The Euclid Heights Allotment was the first major real estate subdivision up on Cleveland's "Heights" above University Circle and Euclid Avenue. Early on, Euclid Heights’ developers sought to attract wealthy Millionaires’ Row residents who, in the late 19th century, had begun migrating eastward away from the city's pollution and commercial bustle. The development benefited from the advent of electrified streetcars, which could conquer the steep grades leading up to the Heights. Tucked in the corner of a green space framed by Doan Brook and Lake View Cemetery, Euclid Heights offered a stylish retreat where those able to handle longer commutes could enjoy spacious lots, curving streets, handsome architecture, spectacular views, fresh air, privacy and a chance to put distance between themselves and the increasingly dirty, problem-plagued city below.
The story goes that Atlanta and New York railroad lawyer Patrick Calhoun, grandson of U.S. Vice President and Senator John C. Calhoun, traveled to Cleveland on business in 1890. Having time to spare, Calhoun rode out to Lake View Cemetery to see the recently dedicated memorial to the slain President James A. Garfield, a structure Calhoun’s family had supported. On the way he noticed the building boom going on in the East End (Hough area), and wondered where that was heading. Calhoun had been involved earlier in the Richmond Terminal railroad project in Virginia and was familiar with the groundbreaking work that Frank Sprague, the "Father of Electric Traction," had done there in using electric railroads to promote urban development. Knowing that the East Cleveland Railway Company had recently done some innovative work electrifying streetcars locally, Calhoun saw an opportunity to develop an important streetcar suburb at the top of Cedar Glen.
Working with local partners, including John D. Rockefeller's real estate man, J.G.W. Cowles, attorney William Lowe Rice and merchant John Hartness Brown, Calhoun had development plans drawn up by 1892. The Panic of 1893 put their plans on hold but by 1896 an amended site plan was recorded—more or less identical to today's layout of the area with Euclid Heights Boulevard bisecting the site from the southwest corner at the crest of Cedar Hill. In the northeast corner of the development would be the commercial district, what we now know as Coventry Village. Other prominent features included The Overlook—Overlook Road southwest of Edgehill Road and featuring large mansions featuring splendid north- and west-facing views—and the Euclid Club, a country club that sported a golf course spanning both sides of Cedar Road and a grand quarter-mile entry path beginning at what is now the corner of Derbyshire and Surrey Roads.
The development gradually attracted fine homes and also spurred other beautiful subdivisions, such as Barton Deming’s Euclid Golf Allotment on the south portion of the former golf course (which closed in 1912). Moreover, the Van Sweringen brothers, are believed to have been paperboys in the Euclid Heights area and later went on to adopt themes from the Euclid Heights Allotment in their famous Shaker Heights and Shaker Farm communities (the latter comprises streets such as Stratford, Marlboro, Fairfax and Guilford, west of Lee Road and immediately north of Fairmount Boulevard) . Calhoun, however, was distracted by legal problems running the San Francisco streetcar franchise after the Great Earthquake and saw his Euclid Heights development company forced into bankruptcy in 1914. By then William Rice had been murdered while walking home to the Overlook from the Euclid Club, a sensational case that featured John Hartness Brown as a suspect. Although it still maintains its picturesque “Garden City” look, Euclid Heights soon evolved from a private hilltop retreat to a busy gateway to the rapidly developing Heights. A large portion of Calhoun-owned land in the area’s eastern sector was sold off and subdivided, thus explaining why Cleveland Heights homes east of Coventry Road tend to be somewhat more modest than those near the top of the hill. Today Euclid Heights is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It remains full of architecturally significant homes (including Calhoun's at 2460 Edgehill), but its main significance is the role it played in opening the Heights as a streetcar suburb for wealthy Clevelanders.
]]>When John Barr opened Nighttown on February 5, 1965, it was a one-room bar. Constructed in 1920, the building had previously housed the Cedar Hill Diner, a deli, Sam’s Beauty Parlor and Stock's Candies. The Silhouette Lounge, which was run by mob-operated Cadillac Amusements, replaced Stock's Candies in 1960. After the feds shut down the Silhouette Lounge, Barr leased the storefront and named the tavern after the Dublin red-light district in James Joyce’s Ulysses. The space was quite small and had an upright piano upon which a few local musicians would occasionally play. A restaurant area was added in 1966. As Nighttown became more popular, Barr expanded the restaurant and bar into three other storefronts surrounding the original space, yielding a 400-seat establishment comprising six dining rooms and three bars: the entire first floor of the three-story building. Barr sold Nighttown to Ireland-born Brendan Ring in 2001. As the building expanded (including a large covered patio named Stephen’s Green after Dublin, Ireland’s, best known city park), so did the list of guest performers. Barr had been a fan of stride piano, a type of jazz that was popular when the bar opened, but he only had space for one or two local players. When Brendan Ring became Nighttown’s general manager in 1993, he brought in Jim Wadsworth to book bigger national acts. Nighttown enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s premier venues for jazz music, according to DownBeat magazine. A short list of Nighttown’s performing alumni includes Freddy Cole, Jane Monheit, John Pizzarelli, Brian Auger, Ann Hampton Callaway, Tommy Tune, Ray Brown, Basia, Cyrille Aimee, Esperanza Spaulding, John Legend, Dick Cavett and Dick Gregory. In addition to formally booked acts, numerous musicians—from Wynton Marsalis to Stevie Wonder—dropped in for impromptu performances. Nighttown also became the home of the Press Club of Cleveland’s Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007.
Like many restaurants, Nighttown suffered from the upheaval of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Ring sold the restaurant to another operator who only managed to keep it open for several months. In 2025, restaurateur Brandon Chrostowski leased the former Nighttown space to relocate Edwin's, his French restaurant on Shaker Square that prepares formerly incarcerated people for success in the culinary and hospitality industries.
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]]>Until the late 1800s, looking down from atop Cedar Hill you would have seen little more than a countryside landscape divided by an unkempt dirt road. The hillside known as Cedar Glen hosted few travellers aside from farm wagons and, later, visitors to the springs resort at the foot of the hill. In less than a century, this scene would be replaced by one of a busy, six-lane road as Cedar Glen became the biggest gateway to the Heights from the city of Cleveland.
One of Cedar Glen's most salient characteristics is its gradual rise in elevation. The western edge of the Portage Escarpment causes this natural formation. The Portage Escarpment not only divides the Allegheny Plateau and the Great Lakes Basin, but also acts as a boundary between Cleveland and its suburban "Heights" to the east. Originally the eastern part of Cedar Glen and the high ground to which it leads belonged to East Cleveland Township. When Cleveland Heights incorporated as a village in 1903, it engulfed the southern part of East Cleveland Township, which included farmland and Cedar Glen.
Another natural feature that, for a time, made Cedar Glen a well-known area was Doan Brook, which was piped and buried underground in 1929. In the early 1800s, bluish grey sandstone called Euclid bluestone was quarried along the brook. The hard sandstone was used for everything from laundry tubs to sidewalks. Later in the century Doan Brook again brought attention to Cedar Glen. Dr. Nathan Hardy Ambler was a former dentist and the owner of the Cedar Glen property through which Doan Brook passes on its way from Shaker Lakes to Lake Erie. Although the blue-green water tasted like sulfur, Ambler began bottling and selling it to local restaurants. Because patrons believed the water offered health benefits and hydrotherapy was becoming a popular treatment method, Ambler and his partner Daniel O. Caswell opened the Blue Rock Spring House in Cedar Glen. The water resort and sanitarium operated from 1880 until 1908 when popularity began to fade.
Cedar Glen began its transition to one of Cleveland's most important transportation gateways from the suburbs in 1896 when entrepreneur and suburban developer Patrick Calhoun donated a large tract of land to the city's park system. One of the conditions of the gift was that Calhoun would be permitted to run a double-line street railway through Cedar Glen. Construction began that fall on the street railway that was intended to bring passengers to and from Euclid Heights and Ambler Heights, prestigious residential allotments on the "Overlook." The increase in suburban residents and visitors made possible the construction of the Cedar Fairmount retail district at the top of the hill.
By the 1920s Cedar Glen was bustling with heavy streetcar and automobile traffic. At the end of that decade a tunnel and platform were built on the western end of Cedar Glen in conjunction with the construction of the Cleveland Union Terminal, further connecting Cleveland Heights to its urban neighbor. In the mid 1950s Cleveland Transit Service (CTS), the predecessor of today's RTA, built the University Circle Rapid Transit Station at the same location on the bottom of Cedar Glen where the tunnel was constructed twenty-five years earlier. Completely transformed from its onetime status as a barren, dirt road, Cedar Glen now remains a well-traveled gateway to and from Cleveland.
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]]>At the turn of the twentieth century, Adella Prentiss Hughes, musical organizer and pioneer, sought to change the music scene in her hometown of Cleveland. She took a music degree that she earned from Vassar College in 1890, and went on a grand tour of Europe. The focus of her trip? To study international music. She spent her time well, by networking with a number of world famous conductors. By the time she returned to America in 1891, she had made a name for herself as a professional accompanist and soloist, yet she wanted a change. She found her true passion in the art of promotion. She especially loved promoting Cleveland's thriving musical performances.
By 1901, Adella was a fixture in the Cleveland music scene. Being extremely motivated, fashion forward, and equipped with a brilliant mind, she regularly booked outdoor performances. Her favorite venue was Grays Armory. She ultimately wanted to gain enough public interest to fund a permanent Cleveland Orchestra. Over the next 15 years, Hughes kept a steady stream of operas, symphonies, ballets and orchestras playing at Grays Armory. She finally had the idea for the Musical Arts Association in 1915, and just three years later, the Cleveland Orchestra was created. The Orchestra was musically anchored by Russian conductor Nikolai Sokoloff and financially led by a dedicated following of businessmen and professionals.
The orchestra was such a hit that it needed to have its own concert space. Under Hughes's direction, the funding for Severance Hall began in 1930. She was able to secure over five million dollars in public donations, and nearly three million dollars from John Long Severance. Hughes was so successful in raising money for the construction of the building that she had money left over. So much so that when construction was completed they had money left over to begin an endowment earmarked for the maintenance of the building. The completion of Severance Hall and the creation of the Cleveland Orchestra marked the fulfillment of two lifelong dreams for Hughes. Her love for music, along with her determination, helped bring these dreams to fruition.
]]>The four residential buildings (16 total units) that occupy the block bounded by Mornington Lane and East Overlook, Coventry and Edgehill Roads are a significant departure from the architectural flavor most people associate with Cleveland Heights. Built in the mid-1960s, the condominiums are vaguely Usonian, with the low roofs, open living areas and integrated furnishings favored by Frank Lloyd Wright. The homes are clearly a departure from the city's stylistic essence, but they are attractive, well-accepted neighbors in a district populated mainly by grand, early 20th-century residences.
The area was not always so accommodating or so eclectic. From 1909 to 1965, the 5.5-acre plot where the condominiums now stand was home to the Briggs estate, a European-style "castle" designed by famed architect Charles Schweinfurth. Although badly neglected and largely vacant in its later years, the structure was still considered by many to be a treasure worth saving. In the 1960s, unfortunately, there simply was no market for such an opulent, over-the-top abode. As a result, the massive stone building fell victim to the wrecker's ball following a nasty legal fight. The only structures remaining from the original estate are the wall and fence surrounding the property, a playhouse, a beautiful swimming pool and bath house, and a building that borders Mornington Lane, inside of which is a magnificent 60-foot-long ballroom.
How lavish was the Briggs castle? Built between 1906 and 1909, the Tudor-style colossus had 30 rooms, 30-inch outer walls, ten bathrooms (with tile imported from Italy), 15 hand-carved marble fireplaces, mahogany paneling, hand-blown leaded glass windows, two greenhouses, and imported English slate and tile. The house even contained a Bible room characterized by mosaic marble panels depicting biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation.
Perhaps more amazing than its architectural specs is the fact that this magnificent structure stood for less than 60 years. Moreover, its only resident owners (the Briggs family) occupied the home for less than 30 years (1909 to 1937). The home then was under- or un-used until its demise in the mid 1960s. Simply put, Dr. Charles Briggs, a wealthy physician and businessman, had created a behemoth that suited only him and his family. Despite its amazing luxury, the place was simply too large and too maintenance-intensive to attract other residents after Dr. Briggs' death in 1937.
After 1937, the Briggs estate plodded on as a rooming house. It was also a popular musical venue for the many years that widely beloved piano teacher Frieda Schumacher lived in the ballroom (1941 to 1964). Unfortunately, Ms. Schumacher's presence was one of the home's only bright spots during that period. The other tenants were mostly short-term renters, transients and squatters. By 1957, following numerous legal squabbles, only Ms. Schumacher and a few other people - notably Elisabeth Andersen Seaver Ness, the widow of famed lawman Eliot Ness - were allowed to stay.
Sadly, the truncated life of such a majestic property was not that unusual in Cleveland Heights, or anywhere for that matter. The inescapable reality is that, more often than not, homes of such gargantuan proportions belong to another age. A small percentage are lovingly maintained by resident owners with deep pockets, and creative reuse (e.g., bed & breakfasts or offices for non-profit agencies) saved some others. But in Cleveland Heights, a great many ultra-grand homes fell well short of the multi-century lifespan intended for them.
]]>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.
]]>Cedar Fairmount, the residential and commercial neighborhood where eastbound Cedar Road forks into Cedar to the left and Fairmount to the right, emerged as the "gateway to the Heights" as early as 1918 when the Tudor-style Heights Center Building opened on the north side of Cedar Road between Lennox and Surrey roads. Taking advantage of its streetcar connection to Cleveland via Cedar Glen, the district grew rapidly in the 1920s, with new storefronts and apartment buildings erected throughout the decade. For many years Heights Medical Building and Doctors' Hospital (which stood slightly southeast of the Buckingham Condominiums where Euclid Heights Boulevard intersects with Cedar Road) made the area a medical hub.
Cedar Fairmount's growth was further buoyed by Barton Deming's development of Euclid Golf, an upscale neighborhood bounded roughly by the Cedar-Fairmount intersection to the west, Cedar Road to the north, North Park Boulevard to the south, and Coventry Road to the east. A large percentage of Deming's development was previously occupied by the Euclid Golf Club, whose property (owned in part by John D. Rockefeller) also stretched west into the Cedar Heights neighborhood, whose streets include Grandview and Bellfield Avenues. Euclid Golf Club closed in 1912. Not surprisingly, Demington Drive takes its name from Barton Deming.
Concerns about the "aging" of Cleveland Heights led to plans for a massive redevelopment of Cedar Fairmount in 1969. The renewal's cornerstone was to be called Surrey Place, a combination of high-rise and garden-type apartments, connected to a proposed Cleveland Transit System (CTS) rapid transit spur to Severance Center. The plan failed, but a half century later, following lengthy public debate, the "Top of the Hill" project got underway in 2021.
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]]>The Alcazar Hotel was built in the Spanish-Moorish style in 1923 and mimicked the architecture of two hotels in St. Augustine, Florida. The Alcazar (which translates as "home in a fortress") is built in the shape of an irregular pentagon, and features a central courtyard which centers on a circular fountain that is a replica of the one at the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine. Its stunning interior features a goldfish pond surrounded by a large hexagonal lounge adorned with colorful mosaic tiles. Cleveland architect Harry T. Jeffrey designed the hotel, which took nearly two years to construct at and cost over $2 million.
The Alcazar was one of the Cleveland area's grandest residential apartment hotels and among the first such buildings in the suburbs. The hotel owners appealed to wealthy Clevelanders in a 1923 advertisement by asking, "The new Alcazar hotel provides an economical home for those wishing to be relieved of housekeeping and servant problems... Why keep house when you can secure homelike accommodations at a much lower cost?" The hotel appealed not only to upper-class couples and families, but also to celebrities, attracting the likes of George Gershwin, Jack Benny, Cole Porter, Bob Hope, and other popular entertainers. Its restaurant and cocktail lounge drew the city's social elite as well as visiting VIPs, and its grand ballroom and courtyard were the site of a number of weddings and lavish events.
By the late 1950s, however, the building was falling into disrepair, and big houses in the area's growing suburbs attracted wealthy families who might have otherwise lived at places like the Alcazar. In 1963, Christian Scientists purchased the Alcazar for use as a retirement home for members of their faith. They soon opened up the hotel to the elderly of all faiths, and today the Alcazar remains primarily a place for seniors, though a few suites are used for corporate housing and by regular hotel guests. Special events are still held there as well, and the building has benefited from improved upkeep which helps maintain its charm and elegant appeal. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
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]]>Cleveland's industry and population grew rapidly during the last quarter of the 19th century. As a result, the city's affluent population began looking beyond the city limits for respite from the dirt and bustle of urban living. The area that is now known as Coventry Village was one of those destinations — originally developed as part of the upper-class planned community of Euclid Heights in the 1890s. In the 1910s, however, the bankruptcy of the Euclid Heights Realty Company forced the breakup of large properties for the elite, and led to the erection of several apartment buildings near Coventry Road. As a result, the neighborhood's population became more ethnically and economically mixed, bringing diversity and density to what originally was an exclusive enclave designed for a wealthy, Protestant, and native-born population.
The demise of the Euclid Heights Realty Company also spurred the development of a commercial district along Coventry Road in the 1920s. At the time, the intersection of Coventry and Mayfield Roads served as a key transfer point for streetcar commuters, making the stretch of Coventry between that juncture and Euclid Heights Boulevard a natural place for retail development. In 1919, The Heights Theatre, a 26,000-square-foot, 1,200-seat movie theater, opened at the corner of Euclid Heights Boulevard and Coventry Road. Food markets, drug stores, restaurants, professional offices, hardware stores, and banks also began opening in newly constructed commercial buildings along Coventry Road. The neighborhood's Jewish community, already present in the 1920s, continued to grow in the years after World War II, following the arrival of many Jews from Cleveland's Glenville and Hough neighborhoods. Their kosher meat markets, bakeries, delicatessens, and tailors shops occupied many of Coventry's retail spaces.
Coventry remained a largely Jewish community until the late 1960s, when the neighborhood became the epicenter of Cleveland's growing counterculture. University Circle redevelopment uprooted some of that population and Jews accelerated their migration eastward toward Beachwood and other suburbs. Coventry Village thus emerged as Cleveland's equivalent of Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village. Record stores, head shops, and restaurants catering to younger crowds soon replaced most of the Jewish-owned businesses. For a while, an uncomfortable relationship existed among new counterculture residents and visitors, remaining Jewish families residing primarily in the apartments along Hampshire, and several motorcycle gangs that staked out claims at bars such The Saloon and the C-Saw Café on the east side of Coventry. For the next three decades, Coventry sheltered both hippies-at-heart and adherents of the punk and progressive music movement before morphing yet again into the diverse district that it is today: one part offbeat destination, one part college-town hangout, and one part neighborhood meeting place.
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