Sacred Heart Academy is a historic former residence and school in the city of

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 ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Built as the home of a wealthy man, it was the location of a

Catholic school Catholic schools are Parochial school, parochial pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest parochial schools, religious, no ...

for most of its history. As a work of a regionally prominent architect, it has been named a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been re ...

History

English immigrant

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 d ...

began his Cincinnati architectural practice in 1858 in partnership with Edwin Anderson. This partnership endured until 1870,Gordon, Stephen C., and Elisabeth H. Tuttle. '.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

, 1978-12-11. shortly after Sacred Heart Academy was constructed in 1868. The building was originally a massive house; its first resident, William C. Neff, desired that his home be patterned after the English

Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle is a castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England, managed by English Heritage; much of it is in ruins. The castle was founded after the Norman Conquest of 1066; with development through to the Tudor period. It ...

.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 663-664. Neff's house was one of numerous residences that Hannaford designed for Cincinnati's wealthy, although it predates most others; Hannaford became prominent in Cincinnati and the surrounding region only after designing

Music Hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

near

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

in 1877, and the

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 ...

at the end of the nineteenth century saw numerous Hannaford houses being constructed in prestigious neighborhoods such as Walnut Hills and Avondale. Neff only lived in his great house for a few years; in 1876, it was acquired by the Academy of the Sacred Heart, which needed to leave its previous location on Grandin Road. The Academy used the property for nearly a century until closing entirely in 1970, but it had remained active among Catholic schools until shortly before the end; in the late 1960s, it became a founding member of the Girls Greater Cincinnati League.History
Girls Greater Cincinnati League, 2008-02-06. Accessed 2014-01-28. During its decades in the building, the school arranged for the construction of multiple additions to the original structure.

Architecture

Built primarily of stone, the Academy features

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

walls with a rough appearance. Most parts of the building are two or three stories tall, although the intended English castle appearance is responsible for the presence of a four-story tower. Visitors enter through a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

dominated by pointed arches: both the main entrance and the

sidelight A sidelight or sidelite in a building is a window, usually with a vertical emphasis, that flanks a door or a larger window. Sidelights are narrow, usually stationary and found immediately adjacent to doorways.Barr, Peter.Illustrated Glossary", ...

s employ the design, as does a window placed under the main part of the tower. Such windows, emblematic of the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style, were also used for later construction; they form a crucial component of an attached chapel built during the school's occupation of the building. Inside, hand-carven wood panelling is exceptionally extensive: the Swiss woodworkers whom Neff hired for the purpose required two full years of work to complete the carvings.

Historic site

In 1973, the academy 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 ...

, qualifying because of its historically significant architecture. Seven years later, it was included in 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 fifty-five Hannaford-designed buildings in Hamilton County; its previous National Register status, along with that of sixteen others in the submission, was a significant component of the rationale for granting National Register status to the remaining thirty-eight buildings.

History

Architecture

Historic site

References

Further reading