2247 Chestnut Hills (1989)

This Queen Anne style house was built about 1900 for Mr. Charles Cormick, an interior decorator associated with Sterling and Welch and later the Halle Bros. Company. The planning of the house, as with some of its neighbors, is unique in that the main rooms do not face the street, but instead look out onto the bluff and command an extraordinary view of the city below.

The homes along this stretch of Chestnut Hills Boulevard are part of the Ambler Development begun by Dr. Nathan Ambler in 1900. The area is a parcel bounded by Cedar Glen (now Martin Luther King Boulevard, North Park Boulevard and Harcourt Drive). Dr. Ambler was influenced by rustic English and American suburban developments of the late 1800s. Among them were Frederick Law Olmsted's Riverside (Chicago) and projects in Boston and Philadelphia which featured house sites on curving streets with an air of privacy and exclusiveness.

One unique feature of this area is that it is in Cleveland as well as Cleveland Heights. The house at 2247 Chestnut Hills is one of seven on the street with Cleveland addresses. The placement of these houses and their orientation is reminiscent of simultaneous developments in Clifton Park (Lakewood) and Bratenahl, where the lakeside became the focal point.

The interior of the house has been drastically renovated in recent years to provide a stark background of white walls and natural floors for the owner's collection of paintings and other works of art, most by Ohio artists. One of the remaining original features is the stairway, which the architect used as a focal point. Windows in the back of the house provide an open feeling and serene views. A large children's play area occupies the third floor.