Noble-Monticello
Tour Description
The Noble-Monticello area of Cleveland Heights was largely farmland until about a century ago. Dairies, orchards, and farms made the area something of a "breadbasket" while bluestone quarries yielded the stones that helped build Cleveland. As in other cities, wealthy industrialists fashioned country estates on the Heights by the turn of the last century. By the 1910s Noble Road also became home to the nation's first suburban industrial campus as the GE Lighting Division opened Nela Park, the "University of Light." Thousands of suburban homes replaced farmland in the 20th century, and today the few remaining farmhouses are curiosities amid the many colonial revival tract houses that joined them. With its walkable commercial districts and quaint homes, Noble-Monticello also has some hidden surprises--WPA murals and ceramics, relics from bygone estates, an architect-designed enclave developed by the creators of Shaker Heights, Ohio's first shopping mall, and even an astronomical observatory.