Salmon Halle Mansion

The Salmon Halle Mansion This photograph of the Salmon Halle Mansion at 2701 Park Drive reflects the same elegance which epitomized the Halles Bros. department store, one of downtown Cleveland's classiest department stores in the twentieth century. Construction of the Salmon Halle mansion, which has more than 15,000 square feet of livable area, was begun in 1927 and completed in 1929. Source: Shaker Historical Society

Located at 2701 Park Drive, the Salmon Halle Mansion is one of the most elegantly designed houses in Shaker Heights. Its design reflects the same elegance and sense of style which Salmon P. Halle, co-founder of the Halle Brothers department store, brought to his famed Cleveland area business.

Salmon P. Halle (1864-1949) was a second generation Jewish-American, whose father Moses immigrated to Cleveland from Bavaria in 1848--the year of revolutions in Europe. Moses was a savvy businessman who in 1864, together with his brother Manuel, developed a successful wholesale notions business on Water Street (W. 9th St.) in Cleveland. Moses passed his business acumen on to his sons Salmon and Samuel who founded the Halle Brothers department store on Superior Street in downtown Cleveland in 1891. Salmon and Samuel built upon the business skills of their father, adding class and elegance to their retail business venture. Halle Brothers soon came to be known as Cleveland's most elegant department store and retained that reputation for most of the twentieth century until the store closed in 1982.

In 1927, Salmon Halle hired John William Cresswell Corbusier to design his new home on Park Drive (formerly known as Park Drive Way) in Shaker Heights. Corbusier was a noted Cleveland architect who specialized in the design of churches. During the years 1913-1928, Corbusier designed eleven churches in northeast Ohio--all of which are still standing, including the Church of the Covenant in University Circle and the Church of the Savior in Cleveland Heights.

The mansion which Corbusier designed for Salmon Halle is one of the most notable in Shaker Heights. Situated on almost four acres of land, the mansion is built in late French Renaissance/Neoclassical style. It has more than 15,000 square feet of livable area. The mansion features glass entrance doors flanked by lanterns, gable dormers with volutes (spiral scroll-like ornaments), quoins (cornerstones) and voussoirs (wedge-shaped elements that form an arch) above windows. There are quoins at the corner and iron railings. The windows and doors have wide stone surrounds set within smoothly dressed stone walls.

Members of the Halle family resided in the Salmon Halle mansion in Shaker Heights from 1929, when the two year long construction of the home was completed, until 1965, when Salmon Halle's widow Carrie died and the home was sold out of her estate.

On August 23, 1976, the Salmon Halle mansion was designated a Shaker Heights landmark.