The Oldest City House in Dayton

What is the oldest house in Dayton on its original location?

It seems it's an old farmhouse on the northern edge of the Westwood neighborhood, dating from the very early 1800s. There may be other old farmhouse out in the neighborhoods (according to the auditors records theres is one in Ohmer Park from the 1840s)

But what's the oldest city house? The Newcom Tavern has been relocated, and an old house from the 1820s was recently torn down for the new Avis office.

Local tradition says that the Clegg House is the oldest house, dating from 1827 or 28. Looking at the facade on First Street one sees an impressive cube house with nice limestone facade with rusticated base and an ionic pilasters. I would date this later than the 1820s based visual evidence in the Lutzenberger collection and extant houses in the older parts of the Oregon.


To the rear, however, one sees these appendages to the Clegg House. What if one of these, particularly the two story one, was not an appendage but a frestanding house at one time? One can see some modifications (like the horizontal band windows) and what looks like half wood/half brick construction.
However, going around to the front one does see a facade that looks "old", due to the roof line running parallel to the street and the zero lot line construction.
Comparing this to some of the oldest Oregon houses, one sees the window arrangement and central "gap" matches the facades of some early double houses, and there is a central chimney that might have been shared by two sides of the house. The door is also on the end, like some early doubles.
A typological analyses showing how this might have been either a modified double, or a single borrowing the typology of a double.

So, the oldest city house (not farm house) in Dayton could well be the "Clegg House", not the big house on First but the rear "wing".

Rephotography in The Oregon

Enough of the dismal science. Here is a Friday fun thread. Some rephotography sets from The Oregon.















If you have any questions, post them at the comments and I will reply when I get back from Kentucky next week (and to enlarge, just click on the image)

Dave Hall's Penthouse

There is an urban legend about this building, that the mayor of Dayton lived in a penthouse on the roof:


This legend is true! The mayor was Dave Hall, serving on the city commission from 1963 and as mayor from 1965 to his resignation in 1970 due to health problems. Hall is named by the city directories as living there around this time.
Architecturally the design is ahead of its time for Dayton, An early postmodern design , with the black screen element with the outlined windows and keystones, and then a touch of Mies Van Der Rohe or Phillip Johnson, with the big steel and glass pavilion and window walls.

One of the things I found out was that this building was apartments, not just the penthouse. The Sam Hall Apartments (named after one of Hall's sons?). Four floors, ten apartments per floor, including the fifth floor with those big French door windows.

Can you imagine living in such a grand space? With huge ceilings and big windows that swing open to provide a view of the city?

Apparently the place was converted to apartments in the early 1960s (it was originally an Elks lodge), and stayed apartments into the mid 1980s. By 1988 it was back to offices.

What a loss.

Dave Hall was a loss too, maybe even a tragic figure.

Hall could have been one of the better mayors, and he was certainly a big advocate for downtown and renewal to compete with the suburbs. The urban unrest & racial strife of the 1960s intervened and Hall’s plans for downtown came to naught.

The Dayton Mall opened in 1970, the same year Hall resigned, pretty much ending downtown as a retail destination. Hall died in 1971, so he was spared a penthouse view of the slow destruction of the downtown he championed.