The Euclid Golf Allotment, also known as the Euclid Golf Historic District, is a historic district located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in the United States. Roughly bounded by Cedar Road, Coventry Road, West St. James Parkway, and Ardleigh Drive, the site contains primarily residential homes built between 1913 and 1929. The historic district is built on land formerly owned by John D. Rockefeller and at one time leased to the Euclid Golf Club for its back nine holes, and it takes its name from this historic factoid. The Euclid Golf Allotment is a largely undisturbed example of an early 20th century planned community containing American Craftsman, Colonial Revival, French Renaissance Revival, Italian Renaissance Revival, Prairie School, Shingle Style, and Tudor Revival architecture.
The Euclid Golf Allotment was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The Euclid Golf Allotment includes the western half of the Fairmount Boulevard District, another national historic district established in 1976.
Pre-development
Founding Forest Hill The modern city of Cleveland Heights is built atop a geological structure known as the Portage Escarpment, a geological feature some wide that connects the Appalachian Plateau in the east to the Erie Plain in the west. Early residents of Cleveland settled along The Flats, a low-lying plain on either side of the Cuyahoga River bounded by steep slopes. Although farms initially occupied the Erie Plain above The Flats on both sides of the river, by the American Civil War middle- and upper class homes dominated these areas. Through the middle and late 1800s, a thriving business district grew on the east side of the Cuyahoga around Public Square (conceived in 1796 as the center of the town) and later Clinton Square (built in 1835). The city continued rapidly expanding eastward through the 1800s. As Cleveland became an industrial powerhouse in the late 1800s, it developed an extremely wealthy upper class. Euclid Avenue became the preferred address for more than 300 of the wealthiest families in the United States.
Euclid Avenue reached its zenith in the 1890s, but began a three-decade rapid decline thereafter as extensive retail development drove the upper class eastward. The early pressures placed on Euclid Avenue-dwellers led to the creation of the Forest Hill estate. In 1873, wealthy Clevelander John D. Rockefeller purchased east of his home at 424 Euclid Avenue. In June 1874, Rockefeller sold of this land to investors who wished to build a sanatorium on the site. A hotel was built atop the highest hill on this land, and Rockefeller and fellow Standard Oil investor Stephen V. Harkness founded a commuter rail line, the Lake View and Collamer Railroad, to serve the sanatorium. But the hospital never opened, and the sanatorium venture failed. Rockefeller purchased the land back in 1877 transformed the hotel into his summer home, and named the estate Forest Hill. Much of the estate, however, was managed as timber farm.
Founding of Euclid Heights and the Euclid Club The development of electric streetcars made the development of suburbs far outside Cleveland's city limits practical for the first time in the 1890s. In 1890, railroad baron Patrick Calhoun purchased atop nearby Cedar Hill, and in 1893 established the planned community of Euclid Heights. It was common at the time for deed restrictions governing type of construction, land use, occupancy, and more to be used when zoning laws and regulations did not exist, and Calhoun's Euclid Heights prohibited retail within the development to prevent Euclid Heights from becoming another Euclid Avenue. (Depreciation in residential home values was quite common at the time, and it was not unrealistic for a family to fear loss of their home due to retail development.)
To further enhance the value of the development, Calhoun organized the Euclid Golf Club. With a course designed by British professional golfer W.H. "Bertie" Way, the club opened in 1901. The clubhouse was located on Norfolk Road, between Derbyshire and Cedar roads. The first, second, and ninth greens were located due west of the clubhouse, in the area framed by Euclid Heights Road and Cedar Road. The fourth through eighth greens ran largely north and south in the area framed by Cedar Road, Harcourt Drive, North Park Boulevard, and Bellfield Avenue. The back nine holes were in the area framed by Cedar Road, Grandview Avenue, North Park Boulevard, and Demington Drive. The club didn't own the land beneath the back nine, however. This was part of Rockefeller's Forest Hill estate. Calhoun asked Rockefeller, an avid golfer, to lease the necessary area to the club. Rockefeller agreed to do so, and required no lease payment—provided no golf was played on Sunday.
Encroachment of Cedar Heights and Shaker Heights
The Euclid Club was hindered by another development, Cedar Heights. Concurrent with the development of Euclid Heights, William and Edmund Walton, Jr. purchased a pasture adjacent to the western boundary of Forest Hill. They built two roads, Grandview Avenue and Bellfield Avenue. They began developing the lots on the east side of Grandview Avenue, the west side of Bellfield Avenue, and between Grandview and Bellfield Avenues, and constructed middle-class homes similar to their previous development in Little Italy. Cedar Heights was marketed only sparingly and developed slowly. But the development sat squarely and inconveniently between the front nine and back nine of the Euclid Club.
The creation of the Shaker Heights development largely doomed the golf club. A community of Shakers founded a commune and farm in the area in 1822, but their numbers had dwindled to just 27 by 1888. In a series of transactions, the Shakers sold the land to a group of Cleveland investors in 1891 who called themselves the Shaker Heights Land Company. The company then donated of land along Doan Brook, Horseshoe Lake (aka Upper Shaker Lake), and Lower Shaker Lake in December 1895 to the city of Cleveland as a park, with the proviso that the city build a road along the park (which effectively connected the Shaker Heights development to Cleveland). Rockefeller donated another as well, to connect this park to Lake Erie (creating Rockefeller Park). Sales remained meager, however, and the company sold its land holdings in 1896 to a syndicate of Buffalo investors led by William Henry Gratwick, Sr. (owner of the Gratwick Steamship Company) and John J. Albright (president of the Ontario Power Company). Once more, sales were minimal. Eight years later, the land was overgrown and its value was 25 percent below its $316,000 ($ in dollars) purchase price. In 1904, the Van Sweringen brothers, Oris Paxton and Mantis James, took over as land agents for the company, formed a syndicate of local investors, and began purchasing lots for development from the Shaker Heights Land Company. As with Calhoun's Euclid Heights, the Van Sweringens used deed restrictions to significantly constrain development to residential housing, and to require that all housing be of the highest quality in terms of design, siting, and construction.
The development of Shaker Heights adjoined the Rockefeller estate. Rockefeller was intrigued by the possibility of developing Forest Hill, and allowed the Van Sweringens to produce a brochure showing how a possible development of the eastern half of his "back nine" could be developed into yet another planned community. But nothing came of this venture. In 1906, Rockefeller agreed to allow the Van Sweringens to build a streetcar line across the Forest Hills estate. The line followed Cedar Road, and then traveled in the center of Fairmount Boulevard to Lee Road. Although a part of Fairmount Boulevard had existed since 1858, the portion from Cedar Road southeast to Lee Road was only developed at this time—cutting right across the Euclid Club's back nine.
Closure of the Euclid Club A significant number of Euclid Club members quit in 1909 and founded the Mayfield Country Club about to the east in Lyndhurst, Ohio. The Euclid Club discontinued its operations in 1912,; The rest of the members left in 1913 to form the Shaker Heights Country Club, which opened in 1915. The Euclid Club briefly reopened the links in 1915, but ceased operations again the same year.
Building the Euclid Golf Allotment
In 1913, Barton R. Deming convinced John D. Rockefeller to enter into a purchase agreement for the formerly leased to the Euclid Club. The Canadian-born Deming and several of his brothers had moved to Cleveland in 1893. After working for other companies for several years, he and his brothers formed Deming Brothers, a real estate development company, in 1903 and developed several high-quality neighborhoods in East Cleveland. Deming's brother, Grant, owned several other real estate development firms, which had done business with Rockefeller in developing other parts of the Forest Hill estate. Through this work, Barton Deming came to know John D. Rockefeller.
Deming founded the B.R. Deming Company to develop the Euclid Golf Allotment. Under the agreement struck by Deming and Rockefeller, Deming could plat or make improvements to the property only with the approval of Abeyton Realty Company, a firm founded by Rockefeller in 1909 to oversee his real estate ventures. The Euclid Golf lots were to be smaller than those in Euclid Heights, for Clarence C. Terrill, manager of Abeyton Realty, felt that the overly large lot size had inhibited Calhoun's sales. While Rockefeller bankrolled the improvements, Deming had control over sales.
Initially, the Euclid Golf development ran into financial trouble. Lot prices fell due to competition from neighboring developments. The situation worsened when Euclid Heights developer Patrick Calhoun declared bankruptcy in 1916, and his vast Euclid Heights holdings were sold at a sheriff's sale at rock-bottom prices. Deming was forced to renegotiate his agreement with Rockefeller in 1915. In order to retain his position as the sole sales agent for Euclid Golf until July 31, 1916, Deming was forced to invest $89,747 ($ in dollars) of his own money into the development. In return, Abeyton Realty invested $320,000 ($ in dollars) in laying drinking water, electrical power, natural gas, and sewer lines and building new paved roads, complete with gutters and curbs. The new agreement also required Deming to sell lots at a minimum price and no less. Once Deming made his initial investment payment, he was permitted to purchase the rest of the property for $430,000 ($ in dollars).
Sales were strong thereafter, and on October 3, 1919, Deming paid $463,158.40 ($ in dollars) for the remainder of the Euclid Golf Allotment.
Layout and architectural principles
Deming platted the Euclid Golf Allotment according to the principles of the "garden city movement", then a popular design strategy for wealthy suburbs. He retained as much of the natural beauty of the area as possible, and imitated other developers freely when their practices proved successful. For example, despite its past use as a golf course, the Euclid Golf Allotment was heavily wooded with mature deciduous trees. Deming required that builders retain as many of these as possible during home construction, so that the value of the land would be as high as possible. (Many of these trees still exist in the 2000s.) Deming also decided to dig Fairmount Boulevard on either side of the Cleveland Railway line which already existed on the property. A wide roadway was created on both sides of the railway line, and Deming's engineers mimicked the design of Fairmount Boulevard in Shaker Heights (laid out by the F. A. Pease Engineering Company).