Ingersoll Acres on the Ground.

After maps and aeriels a virtual site visit.

We’ll move into and out of the study area, starting with the commercial development fronting Route 725, moving back into the site, and out again..


The strip center, Mad River Station, was developed by Beerman Reality, and has a feature found in the first Beerman developments of the late 1940s; second story spec office space. So this is a bit of a throwback to early postwar suburbia. This type of two-story mixed use is fairly unusual for a 1980s strip center.

Pads closer to the highway are developed as freestanding buildings, which is a conventional approach. In this case it’s more retail space, but often one sees these pads developed as chain food places.



Barnes &Noble was the last structure built



The back of the strip center, with blank ground floor wall, due to this being the storage/service side of the ground floor retail


…facing the apartment complex to the rear. Proximate, but no intentional connectivity (missed opportunity).….


Water feature, Recall this was roughly on the course of that Hole’s Creek tributary.


Beyond the apartments Lois Circle narrows and one enters the rump Ingersoll Acres plat. Interesting to see striping here, for high volume traffic.
The oldest surviving house, from 1949, hiding behind the trees. When this Cape Cod was built TV was still fairly new, Truman was president and the Dodgers were still playing at Ebbetts Field, and gas was 26 cents a gallon.

1950, sort of the last gasp of the late 1930s/1940s cottage style, with “Bedford stone” trim.



1954 ranch on huge lot.


1950, according to the county auditors records. Probably one of the earliest modern “ranch style” houses in Dayton suburbia. Nice big picture window. It seems the earlier the spec ranches the better the design.


Departing the remnant residential area into the 1980s/90s development.



The assisted living complex. Not shown is a water feature in front, probably a rework of an old pond on the same site.


…and the extended stay hotel. This might be fairly new, as it has that big gable roof and cheapo EIFIS look to it.

Finally, a look back at what’s left of Ingersoll Acres, a survival of early postwar exurbia in the heart of a 21st century edge city.