Description: The Henry Probasco home, known as Oakwood, is located at 430 West Cliff Lane in the Clifton community of Cincinnati, Ohio. Designed by architect William Tinsley, it was built in the Anglo - Norman Romanesque Revival style using beige and golden tan sandstone, set in limestone borders, between 1859 and 1866. Norman arches lead to an impressive stone porch and typical Romanesque floral and geometric designs surround the front entrance. A round tower with an octagonal roof is topped by an intricate weathervane. The mansion was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 9, 1972.
Benn Pittman hand carved the main staircase of rare woods and other decorative woodwork, along with Henry Fry, in the architectonic and Ruskinian naturalistic styles. Francis Pedretti painted a fresco on the ceiling of the red cedar paneled library. The Herter Brothers, interior designers, decorated the home originally and again around 1800 when Probasco remarried.
Henry Probasco, born July 4, 1820, moved to Cincinnati from Connecticut with his family in 1834. He began working as a hardware store clerk in 1835, and by 1840, had become partners with owner Tyler Davidson and married Tyler’s half sister, Julia Amanda Carrington. Davidson died in 1865, and Probasco sold Cincinnati’s largest hardware store to Lowry, Perin & Company. He erected a bronze statue, designed by August Von Kreling, in Cincinnati’s Fountain Square in 1871, in honor of his brother-in-law, which continues to draw tourists. His wife Julia died in 1886. He married Grace Sherlock in 1887, with which he had two children, Grace S. and Henry Jr. Probasco died in 1902 and was buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery.
View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_b03f03_036_001
Subjects: Architecture; Historic houses; Cincinnati (Ohio); Tinsley, William, 1804-1885; Pedretti, Francis, 1820-1891; Pittman, Benn, 1822-1910; Fry, Henry L., 1807-1895; Herter Brothers (New York, N.Y.); National Register of Historic Places
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)