Thursday, July 22, 1999
Time's up for Hyde Park house
Teardown to begin today
BY ALLEN HOWARD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Piatt Grandin House
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The Piatt Grandin House, which has been the focus of a fight to save it from the wrecking ball, is expected to pass into history today.
The King Wrecking Co. is scheduled to start dismantling the 139-year-old, pre-Civil War structure today, a day after the Cincinnati Building and Inspection Department issued a demolition permit.
Edward Tyrrell, headmaster at the Summit Country Day School, which owns the house at 2167 Grandin Road, said school board members considered the concerns of residents who fought to save the house and made good faith efforts to respond to inquiries regarding the property.
“Our intention for the property at this point is to landscape it in keeping with the character of the neighborhood,” Mr. Tyrrell said. “No plans are in place to build a parking lot or anything else on the property. Future decisions about the use of the land will be respectful of the community's concerns.”
Beth Sullebarger, executive director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association, conceded Wednesday that the agency's efforts to save the house had failed.
“We had worked with several people, trying to relocate the house, but those efforts failed,” Mrs. Sullebarger said.
Mr. Tyrrell said he had worked with several people about moving the house, but he said that fears the house was structurally unsound to move discouraged those efforts.
Mary Ann Wendling who led a residents' committee to save the house, is not conceding defeat.
“They may have won the fight, but they may find out that they really lost,” she said. “Our fight with the school is not over. We don't intend to remain quiet about traffic jams, football crowds and the use of side streets anymore to get the crowds in and out of the school grounds.”
The Piatt Grandin House was built in 1860 for Hannah Piatt Grandin, wife of Philip Grandin, a merchant and bank er and son of a Revolutionary War surgeon.
It was built at the site of the old Grandview mansion. In 1885, records show that the house was bought by Ralph Peters, a prominent businessman with ties to the railroad business. During the 1890s, he donated some of the land behind the house to construction of the Convent of Notre Dame which today houses the Summit Country Day School.
Mr. Tyrrell said the school bought the house in 1996 because of its strategic location.
It would cost an estimated $500,000 to rehabilitate the house, which would include a sprinkler system and wheelchair access, Mr. Tyrrell said.
“A professional assessment of what it would cost to make the home fully habitable for school use, complete with a sprinkler system, wheelchair ramps and other rehabilitation necessary to bring the house up to code, was well in excess of $500,000,” Mr. Tyrrell said. “The extensive renovation the house required made it unrealistic to convert it to any type of usable facility.”
He also said it was too expensive to maintain it as rental property.
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