S.C. Mayer House | |
Front and northern side | |
   | |
| Location | 1614 Main St., Cincinnati, Ohio |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 39°6′47″N84°30′44″W / 39.11306°N 84.51222°W Coordinates: 39°6′47″N84°30′44″W / 39.11306°N 84.51222°W |
| Area | Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1889 |
| Architect | Samuel Hannaford |
| Architectural style | Second Empire |
| Part of | Over-the-Rhine Historic District (#83001985) |
| MPS | Samuel Hannaford and Sons TR in Hamilton County |
| NRHP reference # | 80003063 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | March 3, 1980 |
The S.C. Mayer House is a historic house in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Constructed in the late 1880s, it has been recognized because of its mix of major architectural styles and its monolithic stone walls. Built by a leading local architect, it has been named a historic site.
Over-the-Rhine is a neighborhood in Cincinnati. Historically, Over-the-Rhine has been a working-class neighborhood. It is also believed to be one of the largest, most intact urban historic districts in the United States.
Cincinnati is a major city in the United States state of Ohio and is the government 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 with Kentucky. The city drives the Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington combined statistical area, which had a population of 2,172,191 in the 2010 census making it Ohio's largest metropolitan area. With a population of 301,301, Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and 65th in the United States. Its metropolitan area is the fastest growing economic power in the Midwestern United States based on increase of economic output and it is the 28th-biggest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. Cincinnati is also within a half day's drive of sixty percent of the United States populace.
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
Set on a stone foundation, the house is built of brick and sandstone with an asbestos roof and elements of iron. [2] The sandstone is among the house's most distinctive components, [3] being used to cover the facade, [4] :4 while the ironwork includes elements such as balustrades of wrought iron around the first-story windows and the cast iron used to create the main stairway to the house. The stairway is necessary for entry because of the house's elevated design: although it stands three stories tall, the first story is elevated high above the ground, and the basement is raised high enough that it can be entered from the street. Topping the building is a steep mansard roof featuring a trio of dormer windows, which are significant contributors to the house's general plan: like the sandstone facade, the roof and windows together are a critical component of the house's appearance, and the windows help to define the facade's three bays. Although the house's overall style is clearly Second Empire, the first and second story possess obvious Italianate influences. [3]
In engineering, a foundation is the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads from the structure to the ground. Foundations are generally considered either shallow or deep. Foundation engineering is the application of soil mechanics and rock mechanics in the design of foundation elements of structures.
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized mineral particles or rock fragments.
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals, which all have in common their asbestiform habit: i.e., long, thin fibrous crystals, with each visible fiber composed of millions of microscopic "fibrils" that can be released by abrasion and other processes. They are commonly known by their colors, as blue asbestos, brown asbestos, white asbestos, and green asbestos.
Constructed in 1889, the Mayer House was the work of Samuel Hannaford, [1] one of Cincinnati's premier architects. At the time, he was near the peak of his prestige: he had become prominent in the late 1870s as the architect for the city's grand new Music Hall, and for ten years he sustained an architectural practice without partners. Having passed his fiftieth birthday, he made two of his sons partners in 1887, but he remained active for another ten years before retiring. [4] :11 Hannaford routinely produced buildings in many different styles, [4] :12 with most of his residences in the late 1880s and early 1890s being either in the Romanesque Revival style or examples of eclecticism, merging components of two or more established styles. The majority of Hannaford's surviving residences in metropolitan Cincinnati, including several built in the early 1890s, featured facades dominated by large areas of ashlar stonework, [4] :3 comparable to the slightly older Mayer House. [3]
Samuel Hannaford 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 done locally, over 300 buildings, but his residential designs appear through New England to the Midwest and the South.
A general partnership, the basic form of partnership under common law, is in most countries an association of persons or an unincorporated company with the following major features:
Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, however, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to feature more simplified arches and windows than their historic counterparts.
In 1980, the S.C. Mayer House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying because of its historically significant architecture. Three years later, nearly all of Over-the-Rhine was listed on the National Register as a historic district, [1] and the Mayer House was one of nearly 1,000 neighborhood buildings designated as contributing properties to the district. [5]
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. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.
Historic districts in the United States are designated historic districts recognizing a group of buildings, properties, or sites by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size: some have hundreds of structures, while others have just a few.
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant. Government agencies, at the state, national, and local level in the United States, have differing definitions of what constitutes a contributing property but there are common characteristics. Local laws often regulate the changes that can be made to contributing structures within designated historic districts. The first local ordinances dealing with the alteration of buildings within historic districts was in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931.
