Resort Hotel was near a now dry waterfall in OH

Tweet

Cascade House is an unusual surviving example of a resort hotel which captures an important aspect of American life, and whose rural setting is still very much as it was in the late nineteenth century.

Nelson's Ledges are the west bank of a prehistoric river formed at the time of the retreat of the glacier, although an 1885 account of the area attributed their creation to volcanic upheaval. The ledges became a tourist spot very early, and the Cascade House, named for the nearby Cascade Falls, was built during the Civil War to replace an earlier building called the Grotto which burned. In the last quarter of the century the ballroom attracted visitors from great distances. The park was lively with horses and buggies, picnic lunches, watermelon-eating contests and good music.

The State purchased forty acres including the ledges in 1920, twenty more acres in 1940 and 101 acres in 1948, forming the Nelson and Kennedy Ledges State Reservation. The Cascade Falls disappeared in 1955, apparently because of blasting by nearby industries.

Building Description

This is a large three-story hotel of frame construction. Its most striking architectural feature is a three-story veranda across the entire west facade. An additional aisle of posts extends forward from the first story only. The posts are square with simple echinus capitals. On the second story only, ornamental scrollwork has been added to the front of the posts (not as brackets). The facade is dilapidated. The stucco surface has come off the lath in several areas. Some windows and sash are broken. The siding on the other elevations consists of horizontal clapboarding.

The building is vacant. On the interior, the main floor contained offices, various public parlors, and a dining room. The second floor contains individual bedrooms along a corridor. The entire third floor is a ballroom. Extending to the rear (east) of the building is a wing that seems to be older because of its gentler roof pitch and Greek Revival cornice. Historical accounts state that a two-story building was erected during the Civil War, and a third floor added for a ballroom shortly thereafter. As the three-story building all appears to have been built at the same time, the rear wing was probably the original building. The pitch of the veranda roof is slightly different from that of the main roof, and there is an obvious joint at the eaves cornice, so the veranda may have been added later. In any case the entire structure seems to have been complete by 1874, except for the additional first-story front porch, which is definitely later still.

There have been no other fundamental alterations to the structure or style of the building, apart from the deterioration of neglect. The building is presently threatened with demolition by the owner.

The building faces the spectacular layered sandstone ledges whose attraction brought it into existence, and the entire setting is semi-wild and appealing to feeling and imagination.

(1975)

(1975)

(1975)

(1975)