The Balch House is a historic house in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

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. Located along Greendale Avenue in that city's Clifton neighborhood, it is a two-and-a-half- story building constructed primarily in the Queen Anne style of architecture.Gordon, Stephen C., and Elisabeth H. Tuttle. '.

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, 1978-12-11. Accessed 2009-10-05. In 1892, Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railroad executive George Balch moved to Clifton. Four years later, deciding to construct a house for himself, he chose renowned Cincinnati architect Samuel Hannaford.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 562. Balch was one of many Clifton residents to commission designs from Hannaford: having built a reputation as one of Cincinnati's premier

Gilded Age In History of the United States, United States history, the Gilded Age is the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after Mar ...

architects, Hannaford had designed large numbers of houses for the residents of upscale neighborhoods such as Clifton. The Balch House was one of Hannaford's last residences in the area, for he retired in 1897. Built of brick and

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

on a stone foundation, the Balch House is covered by 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 ro ...

roof.,

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, 2007. Accessed 2010-10-05. Among its distinctive architectural features is the large

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

on the front, which rises above a large

frame A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

porch that rests on brick

pedestal A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

s. Individuals can enter the house through an ornate entrance located under a decorated smaller gable, while a large gable similar to that of the front crowns the house's western side. The overall

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

of the house is the shape of an "L." In 1980, the Balch House was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

because of its well-preserved historic architecture. Dozens of other Cincinnati buildings were added to the Register at the same time as part of a

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

of buildings designed by Hannaford.

References

{{authority control Houses completed in 1896 Houses in Cincinnati Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Queen Anne architecture in Ohio