The George B. Cox House is a historic residence in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. An

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

building constructed in 1894, this two-and-a-half

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

building was built as the home of leading Hamilton County politician George B. Cox. Largely a

self-made man "Self-made man" is a classic phrase coined on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Foun ...

, Cox began to support himself and his mother at age eight after his father's death in 1861; within ten years, he entered politics, and at the age of twenty-four, he was elected to City Council. Before the age of thirty, he had laid the groundwork for political domination of the city, and his position as Cincinnati's

political boss In politics, a boss is a person who controls a faction or local branch of a political party. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves; most historical bosses did not, at least during the times of their greatest influence. Numerous off ...

was firmly cemented by the late 1880s.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1.

St. Clair Shores St. Clair Shores is a suburban city bordering Lake St. Clair in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms a part of the Metro Detroit area, and is located about northeast of downtown Detroit. Its population was 59,715 at the 2010 ce ...

: Somerset, 1999, 585. In 1894, Cox arranged for the construction of a new house, to be designed by leading Cincinnati architect

Samuel Hannaford Samuel Hannaford (10 April 1835 – 7 January 1911) was an American architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the best known landmarks in the city, such as Music Hall and City Hall, were of his design. The bulk of Hannaford's work was do ...

. The resulting structure is primarily of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

construction, with a

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

of stone and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. Two of its most prominent elements are a large

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

that covers the southern front of the house and half of its western side, and a -story circular

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

that dominates the rest of the building. Located near the house is a two-car

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

; built as a

carriage house A carriage house, also called a remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack. In Great Britain the farm building was called a cart shed. These typically were open f ...

, its architecture is similar to that of the main house.Federal Writers Project.
Cincinnati: a Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors
'.

: Wiesen-Hart, 1943, 382. Cox's house was built near to the end of Samuel Hannaford's career; in practice since 1858,Gordon, Stephen C., and Elisabeth H. Tuttle. '.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

, 1978-12-11. Accessed 2009-10-03. he retired in 1897 at the age of sixty-two. During his career, he rose to the status of Cincinnati's leading architect, due to his responsibility for such buildings as the

Cincinnati Music Hall Music Hall, commonly known as Cincinnati Music Hall, is a classical music performance hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, completed in 1878. It serves as the home for the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, May Festival Chor ...

. Many of his buildings, including the majority of the houses that he designed in Cincinnati, were constructed as the homes of wealthy or powerful members of the city's society; numerous rich and famous individuals of the

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...

found his style highly attractive. Among the owners of Cox's house after his death has been a chapter of

Pi Kappa Alpha Pi Kappa Alpha (), commonly known as PIKE, is a college fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1868. The fraternity has over 225 chapters and colonies across the United States and abroad with over 15,500 undergraduate members over 30 ...

, which used the building as their

fraternity house North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas in which fraternity and sorority members live and work together. In addition to serving as housing, fraternity and sorority housing may also serve to ...

, and the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

, which purchased the property in 1939 and converted it into a women's

dormitory A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

. In late 1973, the Cox House was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, both because of its connection to Cox and because of its historically significant architecture. Seven years later, it became one of twenty houses included in a

multiple property submission The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of Historic districts in the United States, districts, sites, buildings, struc ...

to the National Register of Hannaford-designed buildings in Cincinnati and surrounding portions of Hamilton County; it was one of the collection's few houses that was already listed on the Register. In 2010, arrangements were made to transfer ownership of the property to the

Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library (CHPL) is a public library system in the United States. In addition to its main library location in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, CHPL operates 40 regional and branch locations throughout Hamil ...

, which announced plans to convert it into a branch library to serve the surrounding

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

neighborhood. The library stated that the Cox House would replace a small storefront that previously served the Clifton branch. It opened in 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, George B., House Houses completed in 1894 Pi Kappa Alpha houses Houses in Cincinnati Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Italianate architecture in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Sandstone houses in the United States University and college residential buildings in Ohio 1894 establishments in Ohio Gilded Age mansions