Why is the Cincinnati Preservation Association selling the 19-acre Pinecroft estate of Powel Crosley Jr., where he lived most of his life and died in 1961?
After reviewing its mission statement for “advocating for preservation” and “educating businesses, communities and citizens,” association trustees decided that it should no longer own a large property, says Beth Johnson, executive director and one of three staffers.
“We decided to pass it along to someone else, to a new steward,” she says.
So Nat Comisar, Sibcy Cline executive sales vice president, listed the property for $2.4 million in late June.
“There’s been a ton of interest,” Comisar told me Monday.
A preservation easement, however, “means it still be preserved in perpetuity,” Johnson says.
The two-story 13,334-square foot Tudor with five bedrooms, six fireplaces, Rookwood tile bathrooms, library, game room and wine cellar designed by architect Dwight James Baum was completed in 1928, six years after Crosley launched WLW-AM to push sales of his radios. Four years later, in 1934, Crosley bought the Cincinnati Reds and fired up WLW-AM’s unprecedented 500,000-watt transmitter on Tylersville Road in Butler County.
The grounds included an Olympic-size pool (since filled in), tennis courts, three-hole golf course, polo field, stables, kennels, vineyard, and a lake stocked with bass and bluegill, according to the 2006 “Crosley” book by nephew Rusty McClure, David Stern and Michael A. Banks. Crosley would fly his plane to and from the polo field, says Mike Martini, president and co-founder of the Media Heritage, the local TV/radio archives which has conducted Pincecroft tours.
Crosley’s visitors entered the foyer to see a large organ, removed years ago. The organ console is in storage; the pipes were removed from the attic and used for the organ in the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, Martini says.
The house was open for tours in 2006 when McClure signed copies of his “Crosley” book there. People marveled at the details: stained-glass windows depicting Crosley’s outdoor passions (fishing, hunting, polo and the University of Cincinnati); and nuts and berries carved into fireplace mantels. I noticed the Crosley crest above a second-story window, and another for D.J.B. Architects over a portico to the back yard.
Crosley lived at Pinecroft, 2366 Kipling Ave., until he suffered a fatal heart attack there on March 29, 1961, at age 74. Part of the estate was used to build Providence Hospital in the 1970s, which was closed by Mercy Health in 2013 and demolished in 2015.
Pincecroft was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places Dec. 17, 2008. Johnson said the Cincinnati Preservation Association was given the property 14 years ago by Mercy Health.
It came with the preservation protections, which require any changes to meet Secretary of the Interior standards authorized by the Cincinnati Preservation Association, Johnson says.
That's not a negative, Comisar says. For more than a decade, Funky’s Catering (now DelightMore) has operated Pincecroft Mansion as an event center. It erected a huge tent on the old tennis courts between the mansion and garage.
“It depends on the business model,” Comisar says. “It’s zoned residential. You could get approval to build cottages and cabins. You could host 20 families on the estate and really ramp up revenues.”
Another company has talked about putting a medical marijuana dispensary along Kipling Avenue and using the mansion as its Midwest headquarters, Comisar says.
Any variations would have to be approved by zoning authorities, he says.
Stay tuned.
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