Abandoned school in Ohio

Mt. Healthy Public School - Grace Hunt School, Mount Healthy Ohio

Date added: February 04, 2023 Categories:

Ohio
School

The Mt. Healthy Public School, now known as Grace E. Hunt School, is located at the top of a hill in the small community of Mt. Healthy approximately 10 miles north of Cincinnati.

The earliest school in this community dated back to the initial settlement of the area in the first decades of the 1800's. A succession of school buildings were built during the nineteenth century to serve the growing population in Mt. Healthy, known as Mt. Pleasant during that century. By 1860, the fifth school structure was being erected on the present site of the Mt. Healthy Public School. In 1892, a two-year high school course was organized in Mt. Healthy and was housed in the 1860 school building, which had several subsequent additions to it by this date. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the construction of a new school was debated and soon thereafter acted upon with the erection of the Mt. Healthy Public School in 1910. This new building accommodated all twelve grades in the Mt. Healthy School District, which included the neighboring communities of New Burlington and Springdale. In the first year of the school's operation, the high school course was extended to a four-year program, making it the first four year high school in the hilltop area. The large auditorium and gym in the school was the setting for many of the town's recreational and community activities until a new high school was built just to the north in 1928.

An accelerated building program in the Mt. Healthy School System was begun in the late 1950's and continued into the 1960's. The Mt. Healthy Public School, known today as the Grace E. Hunt School, was used as a grade school until the early 1980s, and has since remained vacant. A 19^th century school close to this school was torn down in the 1970's, leaving the Grace E. Hunt School as the earliest representative of educational efforts in the city.

The Second Renaissance Revival design of the Mt. Healthy Public School was the work of John Francis Sheblessy, an architect in Cincinnati. Sheblessy was a Chicago native who had worked in the offices of noted architects William LeBaron Jenney and Holabird/Root. Just prior to the establishment of his own office in Cincinnati in 1908, Sheblessy worked in Louisville in the office of the MacDonald Brothers. The Mt. Healthy Public School was certainly one of his earliest commissions as the plans were submitted to the school board in 1909. Sheblessy was later noted for his Roman Catholic Churches and institutional buildings, including St. Bonaventura's School and Monastery and Church of the Holy Family in: Cincinnati, St. Elizabeth School in Norwood and Roger Bacon High School in St. Bernard.

The Mt. Healthy School board's desire for functionalism and durability is apparent in the plan, materials and exterior appearance of the building. These practical concerns were translated into a handsome school structure which in many respects remains in the best condition of Mt. Healthy's schools. Both the spacious landscaped setting and the restrained classical elements of the building combine to give the Mt. Healthy Public School a dignified and monumental appearance. The architectural qualities of the Mt. Healthy Public School compare favorably with others in the region built during the same time period, including Lockland's Collegiate Gothic high school of 1912-14 and Wyoming's Oak Avenue School (now the Municipal Building) which was built ca. 1915. Although the Mt. Healthy Public School cannot be viewed in the same context as Cincinnati's school buildings of a similar age, due to Cincinnati's larger school population and financial resources, the integrity of the virtually unaltered interior and exterior of the Mt. Healthy School is not diminished by comparison. A feasibility study to determine the possible re-use of this school as a combination senior citizens center and school board offices was completed in the 1980s.

Building Description

The Mt. Healthy Public School, now known as the Grace E. Hunt School, is located just west of the city's business district in an area that is predominantly residential. The three story, flat-roofed Second Renaissance Revival School is basically unaltered on both the exterior and interior.

The plan of the building is basically square, with two large corner pavilions which flank a longer, recessed section in the center. It has a reinforced concrete foundation with brick wall construction above, sheathed in a golden pressed brick treatment with smooth cement trim. The central recessed section features a slightly projecting yellow brick frontispiece. Above the wooden double doors of this entrance is a round-arched 3-pane fanlight and an enriched archivolt. The Corinthian columns which flank the doorway support a segmental-arched pediment. Banks of four 2/2 doublehung wood sash windows flank this entrance on the second and third stories.

The blank walls on the south facades of the corner pavilions are embellished with concrete bands intersecting at right angles to form a rectangle. Several narrow bands of concrete ring the structure above the basement windows. A denticulated cornice is located above this topmost band, surmounted by a parapet wall which is stepped in the center of the south, east and west facades. The east and west sides of the building are similar to the front (south) facade, although there is no central recessed section. The entrances on these two sides have triangular pediments above the doors and are partially enclosed by small temporary wooden structures. The (north) facade has single 4/4 windows with 3-paned transoms above. Fire escapes are located on the ends of this rear facade.

The interior has a central hall plan, perpendicular to the front entrance, with stairways on the east and west ends. Large classrooms with narrow cloak rooms in the rear are located on both sides of the main corridor. A large auditorium, which features a stained-glass dome, is located on the first floor. The stairways have iron stair rails with a rigid metal mesh between the balustrade and treads. A small blue and white Rookwood tile fountain in the first floor hallway commemorates Grace E. Hunt, a former principal.

Two brick school buildings, dating from 1928 and 1954 are located to the north and west, respectively, of the Mt. Healthy Public School. An open yard area, dotted with large trees, is located just behind the school. An asphalt parking lot, at two levels, separates the school from the low-rise mid-twentieth century one just west.