London isn't the only city to have a mews. If a mews calls to mind small back courts containing stables or garages, here is Cleveland Heights' own mews. And, as in London, artists and others have found that a mews converts into a very convenient and congenial small neighborhood.
The carriage houses here served the first houses built in Cleveland Heights' earliest suburban development, Euclid Heights. The white trimmed red brick with gambrel roof, matching in style and design the house which was only recently torn down for the Christians Science nursing home, belonged to Myron Herrick, the United States Ambassador to France who greeted Lindbergh fifty years ago. The big stable at the end of the deep lawn, with its picturesque ventilators and cottage roofline, belonged to the Edward O. Gordon house, long ago replaced by the little brick French villa in front of it. In the mews proper, the two end carriage houses belonged to Homer H. Johnson, father of the architect of the Seagram Building, Philip Johnson, and his law partner, Melvin B. Johnson. The Johnson building served the Howell-Hinds house which stood on the edge of the bluff where the Christian Science Church now stands.
The Hinds house was the grandest, if not the handsomest, of the Overlook houses. Built of red sandstone, it followed the baronial style of Euclid Avenue rather than the newer English small manor house tradition of the others. The architect, George H. Smith, one of the co-architects of the Arcade, presumably also designed the carriage house. The interior of the Hinds house was decorated by Tiffany & Company; the stained glass window from their parlor can be seen in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
When Hinds sold, the carriage house returned to the Herricks and then to the Homer Johnsons. Originally the only living quarters was the groom's room, but subsequently an apartment was built upstairs for Mr. Tom Adie who was gardener for the houses, with two bedrooms and a bath added later for his two sisters. From Mr. Adie it went to Brook Taylor and from him to the Tom Conners, who transformed the house into its unconventional and very appealing present day state.