The Charles F. Kettering House is a historic house on Ridgeleigh Road in

Kettering, Ohio Kettering is a city in Montgomery county in the U.S. state of Ohio. Almost entirely in Montgomery County, it is an inner suburb of Dayton, Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 57,862 (down slightly from 58,453 in 2010), maki ...

. Built in 1914, and reconstructed after a fire in 1995, it was the primary residence of inventor

Charles F. Kettering Charles Franklin Kettering (August 29, 1876 – November 25, 1958) sometimes known as Charles Fredrick Kettering was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. For the list of patents issued to Kettering, see, Le ...

, founder of

Delco Electronics Delco Electronics Corporation was the automotive electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors based in Kokomo, Indiana, that manufactured ''Delco'' Automobile radios and other electric products found in GM cars. In 1972, Gene ...

. The

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

house, also known as Ridgeleigh Terrace, was the first house in the United States with electric

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

using

freon Freon ( ) is a registered trademark of the Chemours Company and generic descriptor for a number of halocarbon products. They are stable, nonflammable, low toxicity gases or liquids which have generally been used as refrigerants and as aerosol prop ...

. The reconstructed house is now owned by

Kettering Medical Center Kettering Health Main Campus, formerly known as Kettering Medical Center (KMC), is a faith-based, nonprofit hospital located in Kettering, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1964, it is the flagship hospital of the Kettering Health, and is directl ...

, which operates it as a conference center. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1977.

Description and history

The Charles F. Kettering House is located on Kettering's west side, on a hill overlooking the grounds of both

Kettering College Kettering College (formerly Kettering College of Medical Arts) is a private Adventist college in Dayton, Ohio. The college is owned by the Kettering Medical Center and chartered by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The college was built in 1967 n ...

and

. It is a large Tudor Revival structure, originally designed by the

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

firm of

Schenck & Williams Schenck and Williams was an architectural firm in Dayton, Ohio. The firm's projects included the Hawthorn Hill home for Orville Wright and his sister and father, the Dayton Young Men's Christian Association Building, and the Engineers Club of D ...

and built in 1914. The original building was destroyed by fire in 1995 and was rebuilt with significant modifications from the original blueprints, primarily to the upper floors, which were redesigned to accommodate the building's function as a conference center. Charles Kettering was a successful inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. His inventions of a reliable car engine

ignition system An ignition system generates a spark or heats an electrode to a high temperature to ignite a fuel-air mixture in spark ignition internal combustion engines, oil-fired and gas-fired boilers, rocket engines, etc. The widest application for spark ig ...

, discovery of

tetraethyl lead Tetraethyllead (commonly styled tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula Pb( C2H5)4. It is a fuel additive, first being mixed with gasoline beginning in the 1920s as a patented octane rating booster that all ...

as a fuel additive to avoid

engine knocking In spark ignition internal combustion engines, knocking (also knock, detonation, spark knock, pinging or pinking) occurs when combustion of some of the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder does not result from propagation of the flame front ignite ...

, and the development of

, all contributed to the spread of the automobile in the United States. His philanthropy included founding of the

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

References

External links

Ridgeleigh Terrace on Wikimapia
{{National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Historic Landmarks in Ohio Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Houses completed in 1914 Former houses in Ohio House, Kettering National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Ohio Houses in Montgomery County, Ohio

Description and history

See also

References

External links