Mansion in Ohio before demolition
Case Mansion, Canton Ohio
This was the home of architect Guy Tilden's most important client, attorney turned industrialist Frank Case. Case founded the Harvard Co., manufacturing dental furniture, whose building was also designed by Tilden. Tilden was Canton's most prominent architect, designing more than 50 buildings in Canton from 1885 to the mid-1920s. The Romanesque style typifies his earlier work, and the Case Mansion is considered the culmination of Tilden's work in this style.
Frank Case was a patent attorney for the Canton Surgical and Dental Manufacturing Company where he became aware of possibilities for making improvements for dental chairs. He began manufacturing dental and surgical chairs in his home and soon built up a large business. Case gave up his law practice in 1890, devoting all his time to his manufacturing concern, the Harvard Company. By 1904 the company had 120 employees and agencies outside the United States. Case was also involved in a variety of other businesses; he was the founder and first president of the Dime Savings Bank, president of the Canton Public Library Association, and president of Aultman Hospital. Case and his wife were both artists and art collectors and had planned to give their collection of paintings, the mansion, and an endowment fund to the city. Case instead lost all of his money during the Depression and his home was acquired by a bank and turned into a boarding house. A neighbor, Fred Preyer, wanted to pursue Case's dream and purchased the house anonymously, giving it to the Canton Art Institute. From 1940 until 1970 the building housed the Art Institute and later served as offices and clubhouse for the apartment complex which now occupies the remaining acreage behind the mansion.
The mansion, sadly, was demolished in 1990.
Building Description
The castle-like mansion features a dramatic round corner tower and a gable-ended projecting front bay with a recessed 3rd story balcony and carved balustrade. A similar balustrade on the veranda has been removed. Rectangular windows at the tower base have been filled in with matching, unweathered sandstone. Slender rectangular windows wind around the tower, with paired slender arched windows at the top. The tower is topped with an unusual decorative open-work brick design. The veranda's carved capitals on the pillars, intricate dentils, and the porte-cochere's Roman arches "epitomize Tilden's love of ornamental detail."
Interior tilework & parquet floors, carved oak woodwork, and a 3rd-floor ballroom are largely unaltered, although an elevator was installed in the large tower.
The mansion remains surprisingly unchanged, despite its various changes in functions and occupants. The Canton Art Institute placed an elevator in the large front tower, infilling 3 large windows with matching, although unweathered, stone. A small one-story modern wing was added to the north side elevation of the house. Other than the elevator, the interior alterations are minor. The gorgeous woodwork, parquet floors, and decorative tile entrance remain, as does the 3rd-floor ballroom,
The carriage house was razed in the early 1970s to make room for apartments. Case Mansion is in an area once known as "quality hill", where many large residences have been demolished or are being adapted for commercial uses.
(1987)
