OKI Wanna Know is our feature where you get to ask the questions. This week, we uncover the history of a mansion in the middle of industry.
Robb Burns of Florence has a question about something in Sharonville.
"I wanna know about the house that's in a very industrial area. It's a large mansion that sits near Mosteller and Crescentville Road, right next to a (United Dairy Farmers)," he says. "Obviously it's been there a long time. I just want to know the story behind the house (and) how it has survived all this time with all the commercial build-up around it."
The red-roofed, yellow-bricked building is surrounded by a paved driveway. The east fork of the Mill Creek marks the western boundary. Almost every building nearby is either a warehouse, a factory, or a shipping company, so it does stand out.
It's important to note, the neighborhood didn't always look like this. Beth Johnson says in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn't even a neighborhood.
"Before it was an industrial park, this was farmland," she says. "And it was a summer home and farmland for Louis Hauck."
Johnson is the executive director for Cincinnati Preservation. Their offices are in the Hauck mansion in the West End. But, that was the home of one of Cincinnati's beer barons: John Hauck, the father of Louis.
"John Windisch and John Hauck had a brewery together. John Hauck bought him out of it," she says. "It was just John Hauck's Brewery, often called the Dayton Street Brewery as well."
Father John died in 1896, and son Louis took over the business.
Like many of Cincinnati's other wealthy residents, the Haucks had homes in the West End.
Louis Hauck, his wife Frieda, and their children, Cornelius, Frederick, and Katharine, had a home on Dayton Street, before building the northern mansion in 1904.
"In the summer, Louis would live up there too, because it was out of the basin, and so it was a little more comfortable than down by the river," Johnson says.
But before it was a second home, it was already a working farm.
"They would grow their hops and their barley. Today most of our breweries probably bring in their barley, their hops, all of the wheat — the stuff that they need to make the beer," she says. "They didn't do that back then. They grew it here. It was all locally grown."
Johnson says other beer barons, like Christian Moerlein also had farms nearby.
The Hauck Brewery, like many others, shut down in 1920, when Prohibition started. Louis went on to become president of Lincoln National Bank, and also to lead the Cincinnati Zoo, and Cincinnati Gas and Electric.
But, that's a different story.
According to the Society of Historic Sharonville, the farmland around the mansion started disappearing in the late 1960s, as businesses moved in.
By this time, the Haucks had left the house. Louis gave it to his son, Frederick, in 1936. Frederick sold it in 1942.
Johnson says eventually the mansion was no longer a home, and that's why it's still there.
"It was a music school for quite a while, and then it was sold and it became an event center," she says. "So it's basically kind of always had ... uses, and so there really wasn't a reason to tear it down, because it was a productive building."
Johnson says it's in great shape for a 121-year-old house.
"The mechanical systems I believe have all been updated. People can go find the listing and the pictures are fabulous. It's a beautiful, beautiful building."
She said "find the listing." Yes. It's for sale.
According to the Hamilton County Auditor, it's owned by United Dairy Farmers, which has a store next to it, on the corner of Crescentville and Mosteller.
The company bought the house and the land to expand that nearby store. A spokesman says they have no other plans for the property.
The mansion is zoned for "general business," which could include an office or event center.
Johnson says she doesn't know what will happen to it.
"Who knows? Maybe it could actually be turned into a brewery. That would be a use that would fit well within an industrial area, and would be a fitting re-use for a former beer baron's house."
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