In October 1989, Cleveland Plain Dealer business writer John Freeh wrote of the "downtown clubs of Cleveland." In an aside article he described his reception, as a journalist, when he requested an interview with the Union Club of Cleveland management. Club members declined his submitted questions in a "century-long tradition of confidentiality." Further attempts to individually interview executive and civic leader members were similarly denied. Nonetheless, Freeh assembled considerable information to profile Cleveland’s most prominent businessmen’s clubs that had been thriving for up to a century at that time, including the Commerce Club, the University Club, the Cleveland Athletic Club, the Hermit Club, the Tavern Club, and the Slovenian National Home. The clubs shared the common purpose of providing social settings for like-minded business leaders to gather, dine, entertain, and conduct business.

The Union Club of Cleveland is the grande dame of downtown clubs. Founded in 1872, it traces its roots back to the 1830s when the first Union Club in Cleveland was a troop of armed farmers protecting the village from horse and cattle thieves. Later, "Union League" clubs began to grow in several northern cities leading up to and during the Civil War. Clubs were committed to the Union cause and to promote loyalty and support to the causes of Abraham Lincoln. The League of clubs ultimately embraced the Republican Party, pro-Union Democrats, and the Union military and worked to alleviate miseries of the war experienced by local participants.

By 1870, the Cleveland Club, headquartered on the north block of Public Square, attracted patriotic and prominent citizens with common political, business, and academic/social interests. Shortly thereafter, dissatisfaction led to a mass exodus of about 70 members who organized and purchased the Senter residence at 48 Euclid Avenue (the future site of the Hippodrome Theatre) to become the clubhouse for the Union Club of Cleveland. Eighty-one men comprised the original membership including trustees led by Chairman William Bingham and Secretary Waldemer Otis. Trustees included Samuel Mather, William Boardman, H. B. Payne, and others. Marcus Hanna and Amasa Stone were also among the founding members. The Union Club of Cleveland charter declares "for the promotion of physical training and education." Members bought stock and paid dues to fund the club. The club boasts members from the US Senate and House of Representatives, Supreme Court Justices, U.S. Ambassadors, rail and auto executives, bishops (Episcopalian and Catholic), inventors, and an historian (James Ford Rhodes). Presidents Grant, Hayes, McKinley, Garfield, and Taft were honorary members who entertained at the club.

The club flourished with members (numbering 400) and civic influence during the ensuing 30 years of Cleveland’s industrial prosperity. By the turn of the century, the clubhouse would no longer adequately house the projected membership and a search began for a new headquarters site. After much study of available properties, finances, and member preferences, the Castle estate at East 12th and Euclid was purchased and Club members Charles Schweinfurth and David Norton were named architect and builder, respectively, for their new home, sized to accommodate 1,000 members.

December 6, 1905, marked the dedication of the new Union Club of Cleveland at 1211 Euclid Avenue, where it remains today. Decades of the 20th century brought a variety of challenges to the club now settled into its permanent home. In 1907 local politics divided the club. The club’s vast majority and leading Republican members supported Congressman Theodore Burton to unseat Mayor Tom Johnson. Liberty Holden, Plain Dealer publisher and Union Club president, supported Johnson, leading to internal debates and clashes among members about their nearly unanimous support and aid for Burton. Tom Johnson openly criticized the club and "sought its condemnation." Tom Johnson, a dues-paying absentee Union Club member, resigned shortly after his re-election that year.

The 1910s brought new challenges, including the club’s growing membership and operational and financial tensions. The advent of World War I and club members’ patriotic pride combined to influence Cleveland’s support of the impending war effort. Prohibition presented challenges to the tap room and refreshment aspects of the club—one manager served jail time for a Volstead Act conviction. Depression circumstances led to operational issues and fluctuating membership in the fourth decade and World War II brought growth and prosperity to the city and club for three more decades into the 1970s. The clubhouse interior was renovated often to accommodate functional and operational issues.

Club by-laws and social transformation evolved as well over time. Founding members instituted a 100-year tradition of all-male membership; women, wives and family of members were afforded full but separate member privileges in 1882 via separate entrances and room access in the clubhouse. Likewise, membership also excluded African American and Jewish men through the club’s first century. Change came gradually beginning about 1970 with Jewish members, and later in 1982, when the Union Club welcomed its first woman member with full privileges (Karen Horn, President of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank). Before its 150th birthday, the Union Club has seen its first woman president and first black president. While the "personality" of the club ebbed and flowed with its membership, it has remained a conservative social club of Cleveland’s elite business, civic, industry, and social leaders. True to its "ancestry" in the Union League, it remains an elite social club sharing characteristics of its fellow union clubs in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

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In the late nineteenth century, downtowns in the United States were the center of major commercial expansion and industrial growth. The construction of skyscrapers and tall business buildings was exploding and replacing old structures located in central cities. The New England Building is an example of this trend in the late 1800s. The New England Building, also known as the Guardian Building and the National City Bank Building, was built in 1896 on the property that had formerly held a mansion owned by Henry Chrisholm. The structure was initially called the New England Building after the company constructing it. Still, the plan was for the building to be officially named the Ohio Building with the title throughout the structure. However, this name did not seem to catch on as the building continued to be commonly referred to as the New England Building until about 1916.

At the time of the New England Building's completion, it was the tallest building in Cleveland, and one of the tallest in the country, with fifteen floors. However, it lost its distinction as the city's tallest building in 1905 when the Rockefeller Building was built. The architects of the original design of the New England Building, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, were an out-of-state firm located in Boston. Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge's plan was a "sandstone-faced structure" that was "designed with restrained Renaissance detail." Because of its status as the tallest building in the 1890s and its impressive architecture, many businesses and architects moved their offices to the impressive new skyscraper. Many members of the Cleveland Architectural Club, like Charles F. Schweinfurth, relocated to the floors of the New England Building. For about twenty years, the New England Building stood with its original design, with the majority of the floors occupied by business offices.

In 1915, the New England Building was bought by the Guardian Savings and Trust Company for $2,000,000. The Guardian Savings and Trust Company was a widely successful and expanding banking business during the early 1910s. When the leases held by other companies in the New England Building expired, the Guardian Savings and Trust Company hired architects Walker and Weeks, at that time, a relatively new firm, to design rooms for a bank. Walker and Weeks designed an addition added to the back that added 250 rooms, and a new design for the front of the building. Walker and Weeks added the distinctive Corinthian columns to the front of the bank, standing out from the original design of the top of the building. After their role in the redesign of the New England Building, now being called the Guardian Building, Walker and Weeks went on to design more than sixty banks across Ohio.

The New England Building stayed in the hands of the Guardian Savings and Trust Company for close to thirty years. The corporation grew widely in Ohio through the 1920s and was made up of "26 corporations, including investment and real estate firms." However, in March 1933, the Guardian Savings and Trust Company was forced to liquidate. It was discovered that the company mismanaged its customers' money by giving insider loans to members of the company. The National City Bank leased the banking part of the New England Building after the Guardian Savings and Trust Company vacated it, and officially bought the building from the Guardian liquidator for $300,000 on March 28, 1944. From 1944 to 1948, after the National City Bank purchased the New England Building, the third floor housed tenants such as the Veterans Administration and the War Labor Board. After the Veterans Administration and the War Labor Board vacated the New England Building, the National City Bank took up many of the floors for their departments and the banking lobby on the first floor. Beginning June 1, 1949, the National City Bank formally renamed the building, the National City Bank Building.

The National City Bank occupied the banking floor of the New England Building until 2008, when the PNC Bank absorbed the National City Bank. However, the National City Bank moved its executives and departments to a new headquarters that had begun to be built in 1978 and was finished in 1980. In the late twentieth century, the New England Building, like many historic buildings in downtown areas, was not being fully used. The use of historic office buildings fell because of the rising demand for newer office space. The downtown buildings were frequently losing the competition to new office spaces developed in the suburbs.

In an effort to revitalize the building in the late 1990s, a bid was put in for the competition of turning a downtown building into a Holiday Inn Express hotel. In 1997, “Richard Maron, a specialist at bringing old buildings back to life,” bid two-thirds of the New England Building to be converted into the Holiday Inn Express. Despite the competition, Richard Maron won the bid, and to this day, the New England Building is occupied by the Holiday Inn Express.

After the National City Bank was absorbed into the PNC Bank in 2008, the National City Bank located in the New England Building vacated the structure. The bank lobby was empty for many years until the Marble Room converted the old banking rooms into an upscale restaurant and bar. The Marble Room followed the current trend of turning old banking locations into businesses "related to food and dining."

It has been more than 100 years since the New England Building was constructed, and, like most of the historic buildings still standing in downtown Cleveland, it has proved conducive to adaptive reuse. While the New England Building was an important and record-breaking building at the time of its construction, it is now a historic building that continuously revitalizes itself with the current trends of downtown life.

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As you look around Cleveland – attuned to the city's built landscape – you may not know it, but you are looking at many structures designed by the renowned architect Charles Frederick Schweinfurth. He envisioned the most expensive private residence, Mather Mansion, built on the acclaimed Millionaires' Row and erected his masterpiece Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Schweinfurth's "sound mentality and intellectual discipline of a high order, supplemented by a thorough mastery of technical knowledge" sounded through in the design of the Union Club, and the stone bridges that accent the Cultural Gardens. Not only did Schweinfurth design these beautiful architectural works of art, he lived and thrived in the urban landscape that he was charged with making so aesthetically pleasing. During his successful tenure as one of Cleveland's master architects, Schweinfurth also conceived his own private residence on East 75th Street, formerly known as Ingleside Avenue.

What became the Schweinfurth residence was originally proposed for one of his clients W.K. Vanderbilt. In his book Cleveland Architecture 1876-1976, Eric Johannesen notes that "Vanderbilt was chairman of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad" and a member of the famed robber baron family. Nevertheless, these plans fell through for unknown reasons and Schweinfurth took control of the property and set forth to design a home that truly expressed his own stylistic flare. In 1894, Schweinfurth's Romanesque Revival unostentatious home was completed. Schweinfurth occupied the home from 1894 until his death in 1919. In 1915 he "enlarged the original house … to provide [for an] additional dining area and space for servants and guests, as well as [a]…small conservatory." Over time, the lots down E. 75th Street were procured and the wealth of Euclid Avenue flowed off of the main artery onto the side streets. But then the area took an unimagined turn.

White flight to the suburbs changed the character of the neighborhood. The mansions and other grand homes were either boarded up, torn down, or chopped up by slum landlords eager to make a quick buck at the expense of the new predominantly African American clientele. The Schweinfurth home, no longer a private residence, continued after 1930 as the William L. Wagner & Son Funeral Home. The City of Cleveland turned away from the Midtown Corridor, leaving the people and structures to splinter into vermin riddled streets. A resident of E. 75th recalled looking out his "'window at the neighbor's house and watch[ing] the ground under the garbage cans writhe with rats.'" The Hough Riots of 1966, which were in no small way a response to the lack of investment in the area, did not propel the City of Cleveland or private investors to revive the area that "when Cleveland was a boom town… was the neighborhood in which to live." Banks only perpetuated the problem. Local banks redlined the neighborhood because it was overwhelmingly "occupied by persons at the bottom of the economic heap." It was not until 1970—when R. Van Petten and his partner Dale H. Smith purchased the former Schweinfurth property after convincing an African American bank to sign a loan agreement—that a twinkling of resurgence gleamed on the horizon.

Van Petten and Smith labored away, restoring the residence to its original simple elegance, while the rest of the street continued to suffer from urban decay. The new owners hoped that their personal investment in the area would encourage others to follow, but the home for decades remained an "oasis-in-the-desert." In the 1970s, Van Petten and Smith started a preservation movement in the Midtown Corridor that never quite caught. Once investment and economic recovery acts were implemented in the Midtown Corridor, new construction became the answer. Today the winding roads of infrastructure and the expanding Cleveland Clinic campus has architecturally sterilized much of the neighborhood. The former Schweinfurth residence remains an "architecturally lonesome" part of the Ingleside Historic District.

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Cuyahoga County was established in 1807—eleven years after “Cleaveland” became a city and four years after Ohio became a state. For the next century, multiple structures provided judicial services for the county. Initially, court was held in various taverns and inns around town. The first actual courthouse was completed in 1813. It contained jail cells, a living room for the sheriff, and a 2nd floor courtroom. Three other facilities—all located on or near Public Square—were built and deployed throughout the 1800s.

The current building on Lakeside Avenue near Cleveland City Hall was completed in 1911 at a cost of more than $4 million. Designed by the architectural firm of Lehman & Schmitt, with Charles Morris (an École des Beaux-Arts alumnus) as chief designer, the building is constructed of Milford pink granite from Massachusetts. It is one of seven buildings composing the Group Plan—a landmark 1903 initiative to redefine downtown Cleveland with open park space and grand, dignified buildings. The Group Plan structures are representative of the Beaux-Arts school, which emphasizes symmetry; arched and pedimented windows and doors; largely flat roofs; and myriad statuary.

The Courthouse is a prominent salute both to the Beaux-Arts tradition and to some of history’s most important figures. Posted at the entrance are bronze statues of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Above the front cornice are representatives of the four kinds of law: Moses (moral law), Byzantine Emperor Justinian (civil law), King Alfred the Great (common law), and Pope Gregory IX (canon law). Various other statuary includes Simon de Montfort (founder of the English House of Commons), English King Edward I (who gave the English people the right to determine taxation), and US Chief Justice John Marshal.

Directly above the front entry doors are three large arched windows between fluted Ionic columns. These south-facing windows allow copious amounts of daylight into the courtroom—a convenience, an aesthetic bonus and even a metaphor. The frieze of the cornice includes the inscription “Cuyahoga County Courthouse.” The rear (northward) elevation facing Lake Erie is composed similarly but with the inscription “Liberty is Obedience to Law.”

The interior, created under the direction of noted Cleveland architect Charles Schweinfurth, features a grand three-story central court with vaulted ceilings, marble Ionic columns, and a balustraded (railing supported by spindles or stair sticks) mezzanine. An elegant curving marble staircase rises past a large stained-glass window representing Law & Justice.

Along with the Mall district, the Cuyahoga County Courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

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The intersection of Taylor and Mayfield roads in Cleveland Heights is nothing like it was 100 years ago. In the early 20th century, both roads were narrow but long-established country thoroughfares. Dense, old-growth foliage bordered much of the intersection. But the properties on three of those corners were hardly vacant. Indeed, this corner was home to four large country estates owned by leading Cleveland industrialist families.

The intersection's northwest quadrant comprised the outermost reaches of an estate owned by John D. Rockefeller. On the southeast quadrant stood Longwood, a 125-acre estate built in 1911 by John L. Severance, an early partner of Rockefeller and the primary benefactor of Severance Hall, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. The intersection's northeast corner actually included two grand properties. Ben Brae, the home of Dr. Benjamin Millikin and Julia Severance Millikin, was built in 1913. Immediately to the east of Ben Brae was Glenallen.

The Glenallen estate was constructed in 1915 by the recently widowed Elisabeth Severance Allen, John L. Severance's sister. Both Glenallen and Ben Brae had been in the family for several decades, serving as summer retreats for relatives living on Euclid Avenue. The site of these two estates later became the Jewish Community Center, followed by Lutheran East High School. More recently, the Bluestone townhouse development has taken shape on parts of the old estate.

Designed by the renowned architect Charles Schweinfurth, Glenallen evoked the English manor style. Like Longwood and Ben Brae, it was mostly brick, with stone detailing and a combination of gabled and flat roofs. An ornate metal and glass awning framed the home's entryway. Inside, the walls were hung with French tapestries, important paintings and rare prints. Extensive formal gardens surrounded much of the 45-acre property.

The house was demolished in 1945, one year after its owner's death. However, there are a surprising number of remnants, including the stone wall that runs along Mayfield Road and the stone pier at the southeast corner of the Lutheran East property. Several complete structures also survive, most notably an old farmhouse at 3555 Birch Tree Path.

Early Cleveland Heights had no shortage of great estates but, unfortunately, a great majority including Glenallen have fallen to the wrecker's ball. Thus it is only though stories, pictures and the recollections of a few seniors that we are able to enjoy the tremendous beauty and architectural brilliance of these magnificent homesteads.

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In the early 1900s, wealthy Clevelanders escaped from the pollution and congestion of downtown to the fresh air and open spaces of the countryside. Three members of the Severance family purchased land at the intersection of Mayfield and Taylor Roads in Cleveland Heights for their new estates. Wealthy businessman and philanthropist John L. Severance, best known for building Severance Hall as the home of the Cleveland Orchestra, began purchasing land in this area in 1899 and eventually acquired nearly 200 acres.

Severance's Cleveland Heights estate, called Longwood, included a mansion, a dairy barn, several stables, gardeners' cottages, natural brooks and waterfalls, and extensive formal gardens. Severance hired architect J. Milton Dyer, who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and designed Cleveland's city hall, to build an English Tudor mansion. After six years of construction, Severance and his wife Bessie moved into Longwood in the summer of 1910. But just four years later, the couple hired renowned Cleveland architect Charles Schweinfurth to completely remodel their home. Their new 50-room mansion included a tea porch, wine cellar, interior fountain court, and a dedicated space for flower arranging. The finishes included elaborately carved wood paneling, ornamental plaster ceilings, fabric wall coverings, and eight large Italian stone fireplaces. The workers even detached the original servants wing and added a two story addition to connect the two sections. The Severances moved into their "new" $2 million home in early 1916.

After the death of John L. Severance in 1936, the estate transferred to his second cousin Severance Millikin. Millikin lived in the home until 1959, when he moved to a more secluded estate in Gates Mills. But for years before the move, Millikin worked on his plan for a "new downtown" on the former estate. In 1952, he requested rezoning that would pave the way for commercial development of the property. After five years of legal wrangling, the rezoning was approved. Longwood was demolished in 1961 to make way for Ohio's first enclosed mall, Severance Center, as well as the Austin Company headquarters, offices and apartments.

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The four residential buildings (16 total units) that occupy the block bounded by Mornington Lane and East Overlook, Coventry and Edgehill Roads are a significant departure from the architectural flavor most people associate with Cleveland Heights. Built in the mid-1960s, the condominiums are vaguely Usonian, with the low roofs, open living areas and integrated furnishings favored by Frank Lloyd Wright. The homes are clearly a departure from the city's stylistic essence, but they are attractive, well-accepted neighbors in a district populated mainly by grand, early 20th-century residences.

The area was not always so accommodating or so eclectic. From 1909 to 1965, the 5.5-acre plot where the condominiums now stand was home to the Briggs estate, a European-style "castle" designed by famed architect Charles Schweinfurth. Although badly neglected and largely vacant in its later years, the structure was still considered by many to be a treasure worth saving. In the 1960s, unfortunately, there simply was no market for such an opulent, over-the-top abode. As a result, the massive stone building fell victim to the wrecker's ball following a nasty legal fight. The only structures remaining from the original estate are the wall and fence surrounding the property, a playhouse, a beautiful swimming pool and bath house, and a building that borders Mornington Lane, inside of which is a magnificent 60-foot-long ballroom.

How lavish was the Briggs castle? Built between 1906 and 1909, the Tudor-style colossus had 30 rooms, 30-inch outer walls, ten bathrooms (with tile imported from Italy), 15 hand-carved marble fireplaces, mahogany paneling, hand-blown leaded glass windows, two greenhouses, and imported English slate and tile. The house even contained a Bible room characterized by mosaic marble panels depicting biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation.

Perhaps more amazing than its architectural specs is the fact that this magnificent structure stood for less than 60 years. Moreover, its only resident owners (the Briggs family) occupied the home for less than 30 years (1909 to 1937). The home then was under- or un-used until its demise in the mid 1960s. Simply put, Dr. Charles Briggs, a wealthy physician and businessman, had created a behemoth that suited only him and his family. Despite its amazing luxury, the place was simply too large and too maintenance-intensive to attract other residents after Dr. Briggs' death in 1937.

After 1937, the Briggs estate plodded on as a rooming house. It was also a popular musical venue for the many years that widely beloved piano teacher Frieda Schumacher lived in the ballroom (1941 to 1964). Unfortunately, Ms. Schumacher's presence was one of the home's only bright spots during that period. The other tenants were mostly short-term renters, transients and squatters. By 1957, following numerous legal squabbles, only Ms. Schumacher and a few other people - notably Elisabeth Andersen Seaver Ness, the widow of famed lawman Eliot Ness - were allowed to stay.

Sadly, the truncated life of such a majestic property was not that unusual in Cleveland Heights, or anywhere for that matter. The inescapable reality is that, more often than not, homes of such gargantuan proportions belong to another age. A small percentage are lovingly maintained by resident owners with deep pockets, and creative reuse (e.g., bed & breakfasts or offices for non-profit agencies) saved some others. But in Cleveland Heights, a great many ultra-grand homes fell well short of the multi-century lifespan intended for them.

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Charles Schweinfurth (1856-1919) was one of the premier architects in Cleveland around the turn of the 20th-century. He arrived in Cleveland in 1883 and went on to design a number of structures in and around the city, including a number of the mansions that lined Euclid Avenue's famous "Millionaires' Row."

The four sandstone bridges Schweinfurth designed in Rockefeller Park cross over Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at St. Clair Avenue, Wade Park Avenue, Superior Avenue, and the railroad tracks just south of the Shoreway. They were erected between 1897 and 1900 and partially funded through a donation made to the Cleveland Park Board by John D. Rockefeller in 1896. The stone and concrete arched bridges feature winding staircases that lead down into Rockefeller Park. Although their condition declined somewhat over the years, the bridges have benefited from recent restoration work.

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With the opening of Wade Park in 1882 and then Gordon Park some ten years later, the Doan Brook valley on Cleveland's east side was turning into a picturesque stretch of public parks as the nineteenth century drew to a close. On July 22, 1896, during a celebration of the city's centennial at the Central Armory, John D. Rockefeller's real estate agent J. G. W. Cowles announced another key piece in this transformation: Rockefeller had purchased nearly $250,000 worth of land along the valley to make the chain of parks complete from Lake Erie to Shaker Heights. Moreover, Rockefeller would give over $300,000 to the Cleveland Park Board for the beautification and maintenance of the new park. The crowd at the Armory responded with three cheers for Rockefeller and then quickly passed a resolution declaring that the park would forever bear his name.

Today, the portion of parkland named Rockefeller Park runs between Gordon and Wade Parks. Roughly two miles long, it was the recipient of a good portion of Rockefeller's funds. Here, the Doan Brook, which has been culverted underground for much of its path through University Circle, flows in the open past the Cultural Gardens. The park may bear Rockefeller's name, but it reflects the hand of landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch of Brookline, Massachusetts. Bowditch, who frequently worked with Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and John Charles Olmsted of the Olmsted Brothers firm as a surveyor or draftsman, sculpted a park that in many ways embodied Olmstedian principles. Charles Schweinfurth's four elegant stone bridges (completed in 1900) carry traffic over Doan Brook and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. In addition, this part of Rockefeller Park features tennis courts, picnic areas, and a bike trail. Here, one will also find the Rockefeller Park Lagoon, once a popular destination for ice skating, fishing, and boating. The city drained the lagoon for a time in the 1970s, but it has since been restored.

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In the days of horse-drawn carriages and booming industry, one street in Cleveland showcased the elite among the city's citizens. Millionaires' Row, a length of Euclid Avenue, was where prominent figures such as John D. Rockefeller, Marcus Hanna, and Charles F. Brush built their mansions. The largest among them was built for Samuel Mather, chairman of Pickands, Mather & Company, one of the four largest shippers of iron ore in the country. He held the position of officer or director for over two dozen iron, banking, and transportation corporations. For years Mather was among the richest citizens in Cleveland and contributed more than $8 million to community-based organizations.

When it was completed in 1910, the 45-room Mather Mansion was the most expensive home in Cleveland and was the largest home ever built on Euclid Avenue. It was among the street's most luxurious mansions, with handcrafted stone, brick and woodwork and a third-floor ballroom with a 16-foot ceiling that could easily hold 300 guests. Mather Mansion's scale and opulence reflected its owner's attempt to arrest the declining desirability of Millionaires' Row as commercial and industrial buildings encroached. Mather commissioned Charles Schweinfurth, who had previously designed the Rockefeller Park Bridges and at least twelve homes on the street, to design the mansion. Mather was already a supporter of Schweinfurth's work, having given the architect $1 million to cover the cost of building nearby Trinity Cathedral.

As the commercial district of Cleveland pressed further down Euclid Avenue, the elaborate homes began to lose their grandeur in the wake of skyscrapers and large retail stores, and Mather's home proved to be the last built on the storied street. Between 1923 and 1951, many of the homes on Millionaire's Row were demolished to make way for parking lots and commercial buildings. In the mid-1950s, the homes between Mather Mansion and East 30th Street were demolished to make way for the Innerbelt Freeway. Even more homes were torn down in the following decades to accommodate the expansion of Cleveland State University's campus.

Yet, lying just out of the way of the interstate highway and at some distance from the core of CSU's emerging campus, Mather Mansion survived. Upon Samuel Mather's death in 1931, the residence passed to the Cleveland Institute of Music and in 1940 the property was transferred to the Cleveland Automobile Club (an affiliate of AAA). In 1967 Cleveland State University acquired and renovated Mather Mansion, and six years later the house became one of the first Cleveland buildings to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1975, Mather Mansion was among only seven remaining Millionaire Row's homes, allowing a rare glimpse of the magnificence that once dominated Euclid Avenue. In 2009-10 it served as the temporary home of the University's History and Philosophy departments.

In 2014, the university abandoned plans to renovate the Tudor mansion into a boutique hotel and instead allocated $2.7 million to renovate the mansion into the new home for the Center for International Services and Programs, a program to teach English as a second language.

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Trinity Cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, stands across the street from Cleveland State University at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 22nd Street. The current building—the fourth location for Trinity—was designed by “Millionaires’ Row” architect Charles F. Schweinfurth and built in 1901-07 of Indiana limestone in the Gothic style. It is connected to an older parish house built in 1895 and Trinity Commons, constructed in recent years.

The first of Trinity Cathedral’s forerunners, Trinity Parish, was organized on November 9, 1816, at a meeting convened by Phineas Shepard at the old Carter Tavern at Superior and Water (W. 9th) Streets. The first Trinity Church, located at St. Clair and Seneca (W. 3rd) Streets, was consecrated in 1829, making it the first church within what would become the city of Cleveland. However, a fire in the spring of 1854 destroyed the first Trinity Church. The second Church, located on Superior Street (Avenue) near Bond (E. 6th) Street, was consecrated in 1855 and held services there for the next fifty-plus years.

When Schweinfurth was commissioned to design the cathedral, he submitted two plans – one for a Romanesque building and another for a Gothic structure. Episcopal diocesan leaders selected the English Gothic design featuring perpendicular-style American Gothic Revival architecture. The cruciform plan accommodates a nave, chapels, a clergy room, a chapter room, a choir room and hall, and a parish house. Charles Brush supervised the installation of the cathedral’s electrical system during construction, though gas light was originally used when the building was competed and consecrated in 1907. More than 600 angels peer down on the congregation while 57 carved figures surround Christ in the nave. Interior furnishings, some moved from previous locations, conform with the design; altar, pulpit, and lectern are marble and wood in character. Stained-glass windows feature the life of Christ, Mary, and the Nativity.

The majority of the funding for Trinity Cathedral was donated generously by its wealthy parishioners such as Samuel L. Mather, a prominent Cleveland industrialist, whose family mansion is one of the last extant remnants of Millionaires’ Row. In addition to funding the building of the cathedral, when Trinity was consecrated in its current location, prominent pieces like the baptismal font (originally sponsored by Samuel J. Mather himself), as well as items from churches surrounding the old location, were moved as well, helping to provide a sense of continuity. Trinity’s sense of permeance is accompanied by a devoted open relationship with the community that surrounds it, due in large part to the fervent belief that the “Cathedral is the Church for the masses of the population… It knows no difference between wise and foolish, rich and poor, because it is the church for everybody.”

The belief that the church was for everyone is most readily shown in Trinity’s long involvement with the citizenry of Cleveland. The church has a long history of community outreach and social activism, reaching out through the Church Home for the Sick and Friendless as early as the 1850s. The cathedral transcended its socially prominent Millionaires' Row connection to embrace racial integration in the 1960s and has more recently ministered to the homeless; adopted a modern, ecumenical liturgy; and championed openness toward members of the LGBTQ+ community in a time of denominational dissension.

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