The Mariemont Historic District is a

National Historic Landmark District National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

encompassing most of the municipality of Mariemont,

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 ...

, USA. Mariemont was planned and developed in the 1920s by philanthropist

Mary Emery Mary Emery (née Mary Hopkins; 1844–1927) was an American philanthropist. Biography Mary Emery was born to parents Richard Hopkins and Mary Barr Denny Muhlenberg in 1844. In 1862, Mary and her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio from Brooklyn ...

and landscape architect

John Nolen John Nolen (June 14, 1869 – February 18, 1937) was an American landscape architect, planning consultant, founding member of the American City Planning Institute and a writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nolen was orphaned as a child ...

, and was one of the nation's first planned suburban communities. Its architecture and streetscape are still strongly evocative of its original plans. A large portion of the community 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 ...

in 1979; a larger area (fully encompassing the first listing) was designated a National Historic Landmark (as Village of Mariemont) in 2007.

Description and history

Mariemont is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

located about east of downtown

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 ...

in Hamilton County, on

United States Route 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic ...

(aka Wooster Pike), which serves as the principal route through the community. The village occupies an area on the north bank of the

Little Miami River The Little Miami River ( sjw, Cakimiyamithiipi) is a Class I tributary of the Ohio River that flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 26, 2011 through five counties ...

that is roughly rectangular with protrusions to the north, east and southwest. The bulk of the village is residential, with multifamily housing predominant north of Wooster Pike, and single-family housing to its south. Most of the housing is on winding lanes in a parklike setting; some of it is in a rectilinear grid pattern. Industry is restricted to the southwestern protrusion, known as Westover, which extends between Wooster Pike and a railroad right-of-way on the riverbank. Commercial and retail activity is mainly located on Wooster Pike, with a smaller area at Oak and Chestnut Streets. Architecturally, the village resembles an English country village, with large amounts of Tudor Revival architecture, and a stone English country church. The village has several large parks. Dogwood Park is on the west side of the village, which houses the memorial

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

, offering concerts on Sundays throughout the summer months. Miami Bluff Drive provides good views over the river, and Mariemont Gardens is an area in the floodplain below the bluff which was used historically as farmland when not flooded. Located on the embankment below the drive is the Madisonville site, a prehistoric Native American site that attracted early American settlers to the area. The village square serves as the community center with red brick Tudor buildings, including the Mariemont Inn and historical Mariemont Barber Shop. Mariemont also has one of the few elected

Town Crier A town crier, also called a bellman, is an officer of a royal court or public authority who makes public pronouncements as required. Duties and functions The town crier was used to make public announcements in the streets. Criers often dress ...

s remaining in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Mariemont was the brainchild of

, a philanthropist seeking to alleviate housing shortages and poor housing conditions after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Working with Charles Livingood, she retained landscape architect

to draft a comprehensive plan for the village, in which the location and nature of a great deal of its infrastructure was specified. The plan was accepted in 1921, and development took place mostly over the following decade. The Mariemont Company, formed and managed by Emery and Livingood, oversaw the development until 1931, when it was formally dissolved and most of its tangible assets were turned over to the community. The company hired architects from major eastern cities to design buildings of all types in the village. In the decades following the village's creation, development has continued, although at a restrained pace. The village has grown by acquisition of land surrounding its original planned area, and portions of Nolen's design were either not fully implemented, or have undergone subsequent alteration that is not in keeping with the plan. These are generally small and the alterations are rarely intrusive. When the village was surveyed for National Historic Landmark designation in the early 2000s, the only areas of the village that were omitted from the landmarked area were the hospital and high school areas in the east, and small areas north of the historic bounds.the high school's design reflected some rather radical architectural and educational ideas not in keeping with the traditional architecture of the village. The 1979 National Register nomination omitted slightly larger sections in the same area, as well as the entire Mariemont Gardens area, which is separated from the balance of the village by railroad tracks.

Architects

Architects who did work in Mariemont include Louis E. Jallade, Robert Rodes McGoodwin, Jack E. Hodell, and

Ripley and LeBoutillier Ripley may refer to: People and characters * Ripley (name) * ''Ripley'', the test mannequin aboard the first International Space Station space station Dragon 2 space test flight Crew Dragon Demo-1 * Ellen Ripley, a fictional character from the Ali ...

.Mariemont Preservation Foundation

Notes

{{Archaeological NRHP in Hamilton County, Ohio National Historic Landmarks in Ohio Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Historic districts in Hamilton County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Hamilton County, Ohio

Description and history

Architects

See also

Notes