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The Baum-Taft House
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House: A
Historiography
Jaync Merkel
The Taft Museum seems to be a perfectly exist, and early documentary evidence is fragmentary. The
restored residence from the beginning of the nineteenth first statements made about the house in print, from the
century, but it is, in fact, a building that has been enlarged, 183 o's, mention the building itself only in passing. Not until
altered, restored, and redefined over a period of 150 years to the beginning of the twentieth century did historians menserve a series of residential and institutional purposes. Simi- tion its architecture. Soon after that interest centered on the
larly the history of the Baum-Taft house—or any version of architect who designed it, even though today it appears
it—seems to describe something fixed and certain, but the likely that the original house was the work of a carpenterstudy of its history reveals a series of assertions, assumptions, builder and that a number of architects, decorators, craftsstories, and myths uncovered or invented to explain the men, and other professionals were involved in its design,
building that the authors saw or thought they saw. The remodeling, additions, and renovation over the years.
historiography of the Baum-Taft residence reveals as much
The entry on the Baum-Taft house in G.E.
about the writing of architectural history and commentary Kidder Smith's The Architecture ofthe United States, one of the
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the fabric of the most reputable guides to American architecture, typifies the
house does about the building practices during that time.1
commentary made during most of this century:
No original drawings or plans of the house The Taft Museum was built as the residence of Martin Baum,
Jayne Merkel is an art historian
who works as architecture
critic of the Cincinnati Enquirer
and WGUC. She also writes
regularly for Art in America,
Inland Architect, and Artforum.
Front (west) elevation of the
Baum-Taft house (Taft
Museum), Cincinnati, Ohio.
Photo by Jeff Friedman, Cincinnati, Ohio. The Baum-Taft
house is one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in
the state of Ohio.
Queen City Heritage
34
with James Hoban of Washington fame thought by some to be its inhabitants and consists almost entirely of literary evidence:
architect or at least a consultant. The house also recalls Jeffersonian
letters, deeds, articles, papers, and word of mouth. Hardly
principles ofproportion. (Some attribute the house to Latrobe butanyone actually looked at the building or studied old maps,
this is not borne out by Hamlin.)... Its architectural ambitions drawings, and photographs. Most of the researchers were
attain elegance, with two-story central block and lower wings atnot art or architectural historians by training, but even those
either side, and an unusual play ofoval lights in the central section. who were did not conduct a thorough visual analysis—research
A positively scaled, well-projected Tuscan portico marks the entry,
with a crow bar, literally digging into the walls and under the
giving a Greek Revival touch to the Federal Style building. The floors — that Richard Cote, Curator of the White House of
entire house is of white-painted wood.2
the Confederacy, and other scholars have been doing recent-
Like most of the people who studied and
wrote about the house, Kidder Smith did not base his attribution on visual evidence or connect it with his own description. When the facade of the Taft Museum is compared to
Hoban's most famous work, the White House in Washington, it is obvious that the two buildings could not have been
designed by the same architect. They are both white houses
with flanking wings and classical colonnades but the resemblance stops there. The roof lines, the window frames, the
materials, the scale, the degree of detail—the whole approach
to the classical vocabulary—is radically different. But those
differences were not noted in the literature on the house
which showed little interest in the building fabric of the
house, what it looked like, how it was made, how it worked,
and how it evolved over time.
The research on the house that has been done
over the years concentrates mainly on the builders as well as
Illustration of the front (west)
elevation of the Baum-Taft
house (TaftMuseum) published
in Harper's Weekly, July, 1858.
Please note the architectural
differences between this draw-
ly on historic houses in Virginia.
Also, most of the people who worked on the
Baum-Taft house in the past did not list their sources. Some
did not even include footnotes or bibliographies so their
statements, dates, and attributions cannot be substantiated.
When the same date appears again and again, it is impossible
to determine whether it was repeated because the author
found it in a book or article or if he came to the same
conclusion on his own. Although much of the existing
research has limited usefulness for further inquiry, it shows
what the house has meant to previous generations, enriches
the lore of local history, and demonstrates the complexity
involved in gathering information about even a well-preserved,
existing structure.
The first document that pertains, even peripherally, to the Baum-Taft house is the earliest map of the city
in the collection of The Cincinnati Historical Society: Israel
ing and the 1857 lithograph on
page two of this publication.
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
35
Ludlow's Plan of the Town of Cincinnati in 1802, which is Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufacturing,
hand-drawn in ink. Since it does not take in the area where and the Domestic Economy he served as a trustee of the
the house is located, it provides only a kind of negative Select Council of the corporation of the city but declined an
evidence. It suggests that the area east of the public landing offer to represent the district in the United States Congress.7
and Fort Washington had not yet been platted and developed.
Visual evidence exists to support Baum's acquiOn September 1, 1812, Martin Baum pur- sition of the land where the Taft Museum is located. It
chased the site of the Taft Museum from Daniel Symmes, suggests that if not by 1812, then by 181 5, the city had
and the transfer of the land is on file in the Hamilton County grown to encompass the site. A Plan of Cincinnati, Including
Courthouse.3 Baum had come to Cincinnati during the All the Later Additions and Subdivisions Engraved for Daniel
mid-1790's. Marilyn Ott, a former Taft Museum docent, Drake's Statistical View of 1 815, in the collection of The
found his name in the church records of the First Presbyteri- Cincinnati Historical Society, extends about five blocks east
an Church of Cincinnati as early as June 11, 1794, and in the of Broadway along the river. The land in the newly incorpobirth and baptismal registry of the Salem Reformed Church rated eastern area is subdivided, and a big green space appears
(now the United Church of Christ) in Hagerstown, Mary- on the side of the eventual site of the Baum-Taft house,
land, where Baum was born on June 15, 1765.4 Other located between Symmes and Congress (later Fourth and
sources, such as H.A. Ratterman's Der Deutsche Pionier ofThird) streets east of Pike Street. And, in the memoirs of
1 878s and a 1954 Literary Club paper, "Benjamin Latrobe, John Hough James, who lived in Cincinnati from 181 3 to
Was he the Architect (?) of the Taft Museum," by librarian 1826, there is a reference to a garden planted for Baum on
Carl Vitz6 maintain that Baum was born in Hagenau, Alsace, the west side of Deer Creek by a gardener named Schnetz
Germany. The City Directory of 182 5 lists his place of birth assome time around i8i6or 1817.8
Pennsylvania.
On another map of Cincinnati which is next
When Baum arrived, Cincinnati was a village in a chronological sequence, the Plan of Cincinnati, Including
of 500 with ninety-four cabins and ten frame houses. He All the late Additions & Subdivisions Engravedfor Oliver Earnsworth
built a two-story frame structure across the street from in 1 819, the green space is not shown. There are no lot lines
Yeatman's Tavern (the center of the city's social, political, around the Baum property. But there is a house in the
and economic life at the time) on the northwest corner of vicinity, one of the five large and imposing ones in the city
Front and Sycamore streets, opened a general store, and that were illustrated on the map. It is probably the William
soon became one of the city's wealthiest citizens. In 1804 he Lytle house which stood in what is now Lytle Park.
Documents from the next year indicate that a
married Ann Sommerville Wallace and eventually became
the brother-in-law of several prominent early citizens such as house was under construction on the Baum property. There
Judge Jacob Burnet, Nehemiah Wade, Samuel Perry, and was a financial "panic" in 1820 when the Cincinnati Branch
Matthew Wallace, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. of the U.S. Bank sent some notes to Washington that had
After his marriage, he built a brick residence next to the store been issued against land and other collateral, and the central
at Front and Sycamore streets. He expanded his business U.S. Bank sent them back. A number of Cincinnati's most
interests, becoming a partner in as many as seven separate prominent citizens lost their fortunes and their houses in the
firms including Cincinnati's first sugar refinery, the first iron economic destabilization that followed. Martin Baum was
foundry in the West, and the first steam mill where flour, one of them.9
Evidence of Baum's difficulties is recorded in
wool, cotton, and whiskey were made. In 1 803 he helped
form the Miami Exporting Company "to try to develop the papers of William Lytle at The Cincinnati Historical
facilities for shipping goods," briefly became involved with Society. They contain an undated list of twenty properties,
canal building and steamboats, and then turned to banking. which Baum offered to sell him with the owner's estimates
The Miami Exporting Company became the first bank in of their value, including:
the West. Baum was its first president, and when the United
States Bank opened a branch in Cincinnati in 1817, he ... Three lots and the house where I live 8000.00
became a director. He was also involved with the first sub- (presumably at Pike and Congress streets)
scription library, the Lancastrian School, Cincinnati Col- .. .Nine acresland this side ofT)eerCreek andNew House 30000.00
lege, the Western Museum, the Cincinnati Literary Society, (presumably the Taft Museum)
the Gesangverein, and the Apollonian Society. Active in the Fifty acres or thereabouts adjoining the above 2 5 000.00
Queen City Heritage
In a letter of August 22, 1820, Baum offered to sell Lytle his
Broadway property for $ 31,400 and "my Deercreek land,
including the new House and all the materials thereon for
$ 30,600, or both properties for a total of $62,000." The next
day, in another letter, Lytle made a counter-offer of $62,000
for the two properties and seven additional ones which
Baum had valued at $155,733.33. A deal was never struck
even though more letters followed, and in one Baum said,
"... I must have $ 1000 or thereabouts in advance because
without some money I & my Family must starve."10
They did not starve, and in 1825 they appear
to have been living in the "new House" (the Baum-Taft
house). They are listed in the City Directory as residing at
Pike and Symmes (Fourth) streets, instead of Pike and
Congress as before, and there are several references to parties
given by Baum in the house. Henry Howe notes: "His
hospitable home was open to all intellectually great men
who visited Cincinnati, and German literary men were
especially welcome."11 Charles Frederick Goss refers to a
garden party in the house during the summer of 1 82 5 }2 An
account written after Mrs. Baum's death in 1864 says: "[it
was] for those days quite a splendid mansion. When it was
finished he gave a party, which assembled before sunset, and
separated before the present time for assembling parties.
There were present a large number of old pioneers (now
residing with the dead). .. ,"13
Curiously, there is a similar account of a party
given by the next owner of the house, Nicholas Longworth,
during the 1830's.14 The Baum-Taft house seems to have
been the site of great social events in the city, as it is today,
but it did not remain for long in Baum's possession. He and
The Malta Gray Room, looking
southwest, the Baum-Taft
house, c. 1925 during the
residency of Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Phelps Taft. No particular attempt was made to
treat the house as a historic
artifact during the occupancy
of the Tafts; they lived in it comfortably, in the style of the day.
his wife deeded the house, its land, and other property in the
city, the county, and the state to the Bank of the U.S. on
November 12, 1825, in payment of a debt to the bank of
$50,000 plus court expenses.15 The property is described in
the deed as including about four and one-half acres instead
of the nine Baum had offered to Lytle earlier and is said to
include the area between Third and Fifth streets, Pike, and a
street laid out at the back of the Baum property, which is
now known as Butler Street.
While the house belonged to the bank, it
appears to have been leased to a Mrs. Anne Wood who
operated a "school for young ladies." Charles Greve's Centen
nial History of Cincinnati of 1904 mentions a reference in th
City Directory of 18 29 to "a respectable female school kept b
Mrs. Wood on Pike between Symmes and Fifth streets;" and
an undated interview with Mr. Davis L. James, Sr., of the
James Book Store in the museum archives notes: "The Taft
house was used as a school for girls by his grandmother, Mrs.
Anne Wood, and was known as Belmont House. She occupied it for only a short time and then the Longworths
bought it."16
Indeed, Nicholas Longworth, a prominent
Cincinnati businessman like Baum, purchased the house
from the Bank of the U.S. on September 10, 1829, for
$28,000.17 Contemporary accounts suggest that the house
returned to the kind of existence for which it had been built,
but, like those from Baum's time, the accounts reveal more
about the life within (and outside) the walls than the walls
themselves. In a "Retrospect of Western Travel," Harriet
Martineau described the people she met and the things she
saw in this "splendid house" when she was in America in
18 34 and 1835:
The proprietor has a passion for gardening, and his ruling taste
seems likely to be a blessing to the city. He employs four gardene
and toils in his grounds with his own hands. His garden is on a
terrace which overlooks the canal [now Eggelston Avenue], and
mostparklike eminences form the background of the view. Betwee
the garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce o
which he has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some o
which are highly praised by good judges. .. .In this house is West'
preposterous picture of Ophelia, the sight ofwhich amazed me afte
all I had heard of it. ... The party at this house was the largest and
most elegant of any that I attended in Cincinnati. Among many
other guests we met one of the judges of the Supreme Court, a
member of Congress and his lady, two Catholic priests, Judge Ha
the popular writer, with divines, physicians, lawyers, merchants
and their families. The spirit and superiority of the conversation
were worthy of the people assembled.18
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
37
Like other writers from the early years, she
The second half of the nineteenth century,
does not mention the architecture. There are contemporary however, produced some visual documentation. A rare handreferences to Longworth's philanthropy and to his art col- colored insurance map in the collection of The Cincinnati
lection, which accounts for the Robert Duncanson murals, Historical Society, the Martin Insurance Map of 1 8 5 5, depicts
though they are not mentioned either.
the plan of the house and its outbuildings.20 Since it shows
The murals do not seem to have been the only the house with wings, the wings must have been in place
change Longworth made. The building itself suggests that by this time. Since the house occupies a green space in the
substantial alterations were made around 1830. The wings middle of a rather intensely developed area—a different kind
may even have been added as they are awkwardly attached to of place than Harriet Martineau described—the neighborthe central block. The windows in the wing and in the hood must have changed between 1835 and 1855. And
central block are of different sizes and do not line up. The because it faces Pike Street, rather than the river as does the
woodwork on the interior has a slightly sharper profile in Kilgour house shown on the next page of the Martin Insurthe wings than in the central portion and seems to date from ance Map, it seems to be a hybrid type—part town house, part
1 830-1 840 instead of 1 820-1 830. And some of the base-country house. It has outbuildings, indicated with the
boards are not aligned with the plinths supporting the door Roman numerals XV, which mean "frame sheds, stables or
frames. Longworth had a large family for whom he said he outhouses." The stable is on the southeast corner of the lot,
bought the house, so the additions may have been made to and there are other houses on the property nearby. The
accommodate their needs. However, the same kind of ceil- .Martin Insurance Map, like its successors published by the
ing joists appear in the attic over the wings as over the central Sanborn Map Company, is color-coded. Yellow indicates
block, and the basic configuration of the house (a tall central frame construction; pink indicates brick. Many of the other
block with smaller flanking wings) is similar to that of a few fine houses of the time, such as the Kilgour house, the
other houses of the period in the area. The wings on the Literary Club, and the ones near the Taft Museum, were
brick. The Baum-Taft house is inscribed with an eight (VIII),
which means "dwellings part brick and part frame," presumably because of the foundation which is stone with some
brick arches and walls. The porch is frame (XV). And there
is a plus sign (+) on the house indicating a shingle roof.
Does that mean that the standing seam roof was not original
to the house, or is the reference to shingle a mistake? Maps
of this kind are usually accurate, especially about materials,
since they were made for fire insurance purposes.
A rare color lithograph of The Longworth House
in 1857 from "The Memorial of the Golden Wedding of
Nicholas Longworth and Susan Longworth, Celebrated in
Cincinnati on Christmas Eve, 1857" provides the earliest
dated image of the Baum-Taft house.21 Since it was made
from a drawing, the artist may have simplified or altered the
actual appearance of the house. No roof is shown over the
Baum-Taft house may have been planned from the begin- central block, perhaps because it was not visible from the
ning, only executed later. Certainly major interior alter- artist's perspective. The entrance door is simply a plain
ations occurred. Hairline cracks in the plaster indicate that semi-circular arch, different in both style and character from
doorways once led from the main corridor to the Gray and the elaborate Victorian entrance which appears in later phoMalta Gray galleries, and the woodwork in the central hall tographs and the entrance to the museum today, which is
and corridor appears to have been rearranged. There are shown in the architects' drawings from the 1930's. This one
enough inconsistencies in the physical fabric of the house is narrower and has no windows around it. How then was
that we know that it was changed in some way, several times, the entrance hall lighted? Gaslight, which was instituted in
but there is no written documentary evidence of the alter- the 1840's, was available by the time this lithograph was
ations from the 1 8 30's and 1 840's.19
made; but since some kind of natural lighting would have
W.H. Martin, Map of Cincinnati
for Insurance Companies and
l e s / Estate Agencies Containing Every Lot and House
with Its Number Classified
According to the Reference
Below, 1855, Vol. II, p. 9,
collection of The Cincinnati
Historical Society. This handcolored insurance map depicts
the Baum-Taft house with its
original outbuildings.
Queen City Heritage
been required earlier, this was either an alteration of the
original entrance or a fabrication of the artist. In the lithograph, the portico and window sills are painted off-white,
and the window entablatures are not bracketed. The stone
and brick arched openings beneath the portico extend to the
ground, and the stair railings are straight instead of splayed
with plain ironwork evident. The sash windows in the wings
have small nine-over-nine panes. Those in the central block
are larger with six-over-six panes, and thinner than the ones
in place today. The grilles over the ground-story windows
are not punctuated with rosettes, and the ones on the oval
windows in the attic are not shown at all. Clearly a lot of
changes have been made. As the earliest visual resource, the
lithograph was used in the 19 30's as a source of information
for restoration, which seems to have been based on a general
but incomplete knowledge of the Federal Style.22
Why was restoration necessary? Nicholas
Longworth died in 1863, and the house passed to his son
Joseph Longworth who decided not to move in. Some time
around 1866, Francis E. Suire signed a ninety-nine year lease
and began occupation of the residence. Since the Duncanson
murals, commissioned by Longworth, were covered with
wallpaper when the next owner took occupancy around
1870, it is assumed that the redecorating was done under
Suire's tenancy. Around this time, the original wooden mantels were replaced with elaborate Victorian ones of marble
or hand-carved oak, pine flooring in the major reception
areas was overlaid with parquetry, a large central arched
opening was cut into the west wall of the Music Room, the
principal entrance on the facade was altered, the exterior
staircases at the ends of the corridor were removed, and bay
windows were added to the ends of the house.23
A number of images describing the house in
the late nineteenth century survive. Unfortunately, very few
of them are dated, and some are highly interpretive. A sketch
by A.O. Elzner, a prominent Cincinnati architect who, with
his partner, later designed the addition of a dining room for
the Tafts, shows the house in a rather disheveled state,
presumably intended to make it appear romantic. The plantings on the grounds are overgrown with dying trees and
dead branches are strewn among them. A door beneath the
bay window on the north elevation seems to be sinking into
the ground. The windows have no shutters (they were in place
in the 1857 lithograph), but some of them are covered with
striped awnings which are folded back, half-opened, and
pulled down. Two-over-two double hung windows have
replaced the multi-paned windows shown in the earlier
rendering, and an elaborate decorative arched entrance with
lights is now in place. The front staircase is hidden behind
bushes, and the ironwork is barely visible.
A drawing labeled "Sinton Residence, Cincinnati" by E.A. Lloyd and dated 1890 presents a somewhat
cleaner image, with less prominent chimneys, no awnings,
shutters on the windows in the wings, bracketed entablatures over those in the central block, and the light fixtures as
well as ornamental fencing that survive today, separating the
grounds from Pike Street. A standing seam roof is clearly in
place in this frontal view, as it is in the Elzner sketch, but the
ends of the house where the north and south elevations and
the bay windows are located are not visible. However, the
welcoming curved staircase and the depiction of the door
itself is very clear. It has small panels of glass in the lunette,
Gothic tracery on the door, and is flanked by arched side
lights. The doorway looks wider and plainer in photographs
presumed to have been taken around that time. One of them
shows a bedroom wing on the north side, an addition which
was made in 1890 by David Sinton.
Sinton, another Cincinnati industrialist, purchased the house from Joseph Longworth in 1869, according to historians Goss and Greve, though some sources say
1870 or 1 871.24 Sinton lived in the house during the 1 870's
and remained there even after his daughter, Anna, married
Charles Phelps Taft in 1 87 3 in the Music Room. Sinton died
on August 31, 1900.25 For obvious reasons, the Sinton and
Taft reigns run together. The Tafts remained in the house
until they died, Charles in 1929 and Anna in 19 3 1, at which
point it became a museum. As stipulated in the Tafts' deed of
gift, the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts was created in
1927 to administer the museum, and matching funds were
raised by the citizens of Cincinnati during the next year to
help fund its operation. The museum opened to the public
on November 29, 1932.26
The addition of a series of north bedrooms by
Sinton was in place by 1 8 91, and probably by the time of
Lloyd's drawing, because the residence is clearly shown on
the Insurance Maps of Cincinnati of 1 891 with the bedroom
wing.27 In the Atlas of Cincinnati of 1883-1884, the bay
windows are shown but the addition is not.28 In some old
notes in the files of the museum, Louis Belmont was said to
be the architect of the bedroom addition. But he was also
listed as the architect of the dining room extension, and
he was certainly not since the drawings for that project are
in the museum archives.
The dining room was enlarged by the Tafts in
191 o by the architects Elzner & Anderson. They had designed
a number of innovative early concrete buildings in Cincin-
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
nati including the Ingalls Building at Fourth and Vine streets,
the first concrete frame skyscraper in the world; the Elephant House at the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens; and the
American Book Company Building, located next door to
the Taft Museum. They were responsible for a number of
very handsome Georgian and Greek Revival houses in East
Walnut Hills, Clifton, and Avondale. Elzner & Anderson
added a colonnaded niche, classicizing plaster work, and an
extension to the Taft dining room; and they may have added
decoration to the ceiling of the Music Room as well. The
Tafts also commissioned drawings from the firm for a twostory "gallery" to be built onto the north bedroom wing
in 1917. Although the plans for the project survive in the
museum archives, they were not realized.
No particular attempt was made to treat the
house as a historic artifact during the time the Tafts occupied
it. They lived in it comfortably, in the style of the day, as
contemporary photographs illustrate and historians of the
time have noted. The museum archives contain a whole
sequence of photographs of the interior including a postcard labeled: "The Taft Residence, 4th and Pike Streets,
Cincinnati" made for the "Ohio Valley Industrial Exposition, Cincinnati, Aug. 29 to September 24, 1910." It not
only documents the appearance of the house, but suggests
that it was invested with special significance at the time.
The historians' statements prove even more
conclusively that during the early twentieth century, the
architecture of the house was noticed and appreciated. Charles
Theodore Greve described the house in stylistic terms:
A.O. Elzner, Sketch of Sinton
Residence, c. 1880, Cincinnati,
Ohio. Note the introduction of
the bay window on the north
elevation and the Victorian
entrance.
Later Colonial or rather of a transition period from the square
house without the door porch to the pseudo-classic when the facade
was in evolution before the stucco Greek temple was used to mask an
ordinary two-story dwelling, square windows, balconies and all.... The
main porch or center has grown half a story, lighted by two oval
openings on each side of the facade and the roof has lost some of its
pitch. It has pushed out two low wings on the front line. ... Then the
whole has risen from the ground somewhat, disclosing windows.
The cellar has become a basement. The approach has widened the
force of the door porch, which is led up to by nine stone steps. Two
wooden columns close together on each at the corners support the
pediment which crowns the portico. ...29
Greve was very conscious of the history and
evolution of architectural styles, but he oversimplified the
process that actually takes place over time. His view was
excessively linear and progressive, and he assumed, as most
later writers did, that the overall form of the house had been
determined all at once, though he was aware—and even
critical—of some "alterations:"
The door where the character of a house is so strongly told, has
suffered a base "alteration" and no longer holds the half-wheel
Queen City Heritage
ence, 4U1 am: l'ike Sts., Cincinnati.
OHIO •
CINCINNATI
ACO
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transoms that once must have been the ornament of the house.30 The poetically old-fashioned house is wooden, the boards laid on
His judgments were consistent with those of flat... the front door opens to a comfortable hall carpeted deep
the architectsforthe restoration, but he did not explain how red.— The woodwork furnishings of the library are wonderful
he arrived at his conclusions. He mentioned the house's black Flemish oak carvings. Opposite the front door and opening
"good proportion," noted that it was made of "wood put on into a transverse hall is the ballroom, a huge, airy old room with s
smooth and painted white," and said that "the position and great windowsgiving on a porch which overlooks a backgarden. ..
dignity are its best features."31
The house neither in its architecture, furnishings,
A few years later, another local historian, the nor decoration makes any pretence to any particular style, nor is
Reverend Charles Frederick Goss, discussed the house more there any trace ofthat wretched thing so incompatible with the sens
passionately, personally, and romantically, but with a similar of home, the trail of the collector. Yet the architecture is predomi
regard for its history and for history in general:
nantly colonial and there is a notable and noted collection of
Down in the choicest part of town in a spot where the bugle notespictures numbering some seventy-five canvases hanging properly
from Ft. Washington would have sounded... stands a house which here and there upon the walls in all the rooms. ...
as a home always vitally touching the most pregnant historic
There is a sense of great wealth spent lavishly but
interest of the city, connects the past with the present. Over threequietlyfor comfort and beauty. There is perfect harmony. A nd ther
quarters ofa century—well-nigh a century old, this house is perhapsis in it that best quality ofall in human life or art, suggestion. One
the most individual, the most symbolic, of the deepest interest and thinks not only of all the lovely and rare things that stand before
significance of any in Cincinnati. ...
one's eyes now, pictures and frail vases which will so far outlast th
There is a broad and cheerful garden infront. ...A living eyes beholding them, but the quiet beautiful old home calls to
low stone wall with high old-fashioned iron fence. ... Here even mind vanished days when former owners lived there,...33
before the portal of the place the word "old-fashioned" pleasantly
Similar thinking must have influenced the
intrudes. ... There are three sets of great stone gate-posts and youTafts' decision to convert their house and collection to a
enter the middle one, turning the silver knob ofits lock, and walk upmuseum. One of the reasons that the house "called to mind
the stone flagging to the stone steps of the portico with its sets of vanished days" was that its site remained bucolic long after
pillars on either side.32
the entire rest of the downtown basin was intensely developed,
However, when Goss described the way the as illustrated by a large drawing, a Panorama of Cincinnati
Tafts lived in the house, he praised them for not being by J.L. Trout from 1901, in the collection of The Cincinnati
inhibited by its architecture:
Historical Society. In the panorama, prepared when the
Postcard of The Taft Residence, but suggests that it was in4th and Pike Streets, Cincinnati, vested with special significance
for the "Ohio Valley Industrial
at the time.
Exposition, Cincinnati, August
29-September 24, 1910." This
postcard not only documents
the appearance of the house,
The Baum-Taft House
Spring 1988
41
downtown area was being transformed from a compact had done so. ... The Baum house exemplifies this preference. It has
mixed-use nineteenth century city with houses, markets, the air... of a country seat, rather than of a town house, recalling
churches, factories, offices, and business houses intermingled the "seats" of the Virginia and Maryland magnates of its period
with one another into a purely commercial center with tall in its lateral extension and in its vertical restriction, as well as
office buildings and stores, the Baum-Taft house and its in the amplitude of its grounds. ... The reduction of the portico to
immediate neighbors occupy a verdant oasis. Two years later, a porch shows a willingness to sacrifice to practicality, of which the
the houses on either side were demolished and factories results are architecturally rather unfortunate. A tetrastyle "order"
were built next door. But the interest in history was moti- seems to be indicated, or if not that, a distyle of much less attenuvated by more than nostalgia. The writers of the time were ated columns, even with pedestals, if necessary to bring them into
trying to demonstrate the value of previous cultural achieve- classical proportions. On the other hand, the sacrifice ofclassicality
ments. One of the ways they did so (perhaps not completely to practicality in the attic of the central block, apparently required
intentionally) was by producing pedigrees for works of art for servants' quarters or other subordinate uses and lightedfromits
and architecture.
own "ox-eyes," ignoring the requirement of some dividing member
In 1908 Montgomery Schuyler, the most in- between it and its substructure, is architecturally effective, waiving
fluential architecture critic of the day and one of the first convention and precedent, which Latrobe always took a pleasure in
to appreciate American architecture, wrote in the Archi- waiving, provided there was anything to be gained by a waiver.
tectural Record:
The central block is signalized, the "composition" is attained. It
... there is at least one piece of evidence that in the is only a pity that the porch should be so excrescential.34
Cincinnati of 1827 there was a refinement incompatible with
Schuyler was not the first to attribute the
the notion that the "Domestic Manners" which the English critic house to Latrobe. As early as 1887, an anonymous editor
[Mrs. Trollope] depicted were all-pervading... the house which labeled a picture of it in the Inland Architect and News Record:
Martin Baum built in Cincinnati in 1817, and for which he "Old colonial residence, Cincinnati, O.; Benjamin Henry
was well inspired to choose for his architect Benjamin H. Latrobe, Latrobe, architect."35 But because of his reputation, Schuyler's
then fulfilling the last year of his service as architect of the Capitol opinions were echoed by a host of other writers. The Baumat Washington. It is quite unmistakenly Latrobe}s, to those who Taft house was attributed to Latrobe in Thieme-Becker's art
know the work that he was doing in Baltimore and elsewhere in historical dictionary and by the art historian Fiske Kimball;
those years, and who remember his insistence, in design as well asand even though Kimball worded his attribution carefully
in words, upon "simplicity" as the first of architectural qualities. and refuted it later, it lived on in the literature. In 1919
... It was this preference that induced him to revertfromthe Renais-Kimball wrote:
sance to the models of classical Athenian antiquity as soon as he... there are in Ohio, in Michigan, and elsewhere beyond the
was able to do so, and long before any other American architect Alleghenies, many most interesting houses in which the traditions
of the Colonial style and of the classical revival were continued
down to the Civil War. Notable among these is the old Martin
Baum house in Cincinnati, now lovingly preserved, in spite of the
encroachments
of industry, as the residence of Mr. Charles P.
: *
\ i
Taft. ... The house itself with its smooth wall surfaces, its slender,
dignified columns, its delicate cornices and window caps, has
suffered but little in its century of existence. The original doorway,
%
to be sure, was replaced by one of Victorian pattern, and the lamps
with
their heavy pedestals mere additions of the period. ...
7)
Always admired, the house attracted the attention
ofthe late Montgomery Schuyler, a leader in the study of A merican
architecture, who ascribed the authorship of its design to Benjamin
Latrobe... the most highly trained andgifted architect ofhis day in
America. The attribution is indeed a tempting one, especially as
Latrobe was in Pittsburgh from 1811 to 1 814, and is reported by
his son to have furnished designs for several houses along the Ohio.
Although no preserved examples ofdomestic buildings surely designed
E. Robinson and R.H. Pidgeon,
Civil and Topographical Engineers Atlas of the City of
Cincinnati, Ohio from Official
Records and Actual Surveys,
1883-1884, PI. 4, collection of
The Cincinnati Historical
Society. By comparing various
fire insurance maps, we know
that the bay windows on the
north and south elevations
were in place by 1883-1884.
42
Queen City Heritage
by him, which might serve as reliable terms of comparison, havetwo tasks which are somewhat incompatible, though no one
been identified, there is a certain affinity in the window treatmentseems to have sensed so at the time. The architects were
and other features of the Cincinnati house with details in some of Garber & Woodward of Cincinnati who had worked with
Cass Gilbert of New York on the Union Central Building,
Latrobe}s public buildings.36
This is a much more cautious and non- with John Russell Pope on the Cincinnati Gas & Electric
committal attribution than Schuyler's, but it was repeated Company Building, and who had designed the Cincinnati
carelessly even after Kimball changed his mind. As late as Club; the Dixie Terminal Building; and Withrow, Walnut
1970, in Early Homes of Ohio, I.T. Frary wrote: "Local tradi- Hills, and Western Hills high schools. Garber's son, Woodie,
tion names as the architect James Hoban, who designed the a student at Cornell University at the time and later a
White House at Washington, but... better grounds exist for prominent local modern architect, assisted on the project.
attributing it to Benjamin Henry Latrobe."37 Kimball's even- He wrote a thorough paper on the effort which supplements
tual reservations were not widely known, but even those Siple's brochure and derives from the same point of view
who were aware of them did not always acknowledge them. which was very typical of the time.
In a June 14, 1940, letter to Miss Margaret Kremers at the
The Taft restoration began in 1929 at almost
Taft Museum Kimball said:
exactly the same moment as the restoration of Colonial
You have tracked down one of my youthful hypotheses, one of the Williamsburg. Although until recently historians of archivery few I ever advanced without a definite documentary basis. I tecture have tended to think of that time as the beginning of
knew that Latrobe had been in Pittsburgh about 1813 -17... that the era of modern architecture, or at least as the heyday of
he had designed Ashland for Henry Clay and a house in Newport, Art Deco, it was also a period of enthusiastic classical revival,
Kentucky and this led me to venture the idea that the Martin as Garber & Woodward's buildings attest. Since American
Baum (Taft) house might be by him. But when Walter Siple was architects of the 1920's and 1930's were trained in the
restoring the Taft house, he wrote me, sending me what informa- tradition of the French Beaux Arts, they studied architecturtion he had, and I answered him then that I had abandoned any al .history, but it was a very selective history, romantic in
character, and weak in its understanding of American work.
belief that Latrobe was concerned.38
However, in a brochure published by the Taft Yet architects were becoming interested in Americana.
Museum soon after it opened, Siple (who was also director of Although Garber & Woodward's earlier commercial buildthe Cincinnati Art Museum) said: "The name of Benjamin ings had been based on Italian Renaissance or Greco-Roman
Henry Latrobe, designer of the White House porticos, has prototypes, Withrow High School drew its inspiration from
been associated with the Taft residence by both Montgomery the Georgian Colonial, and Walnut Hills was a tribute to
Schuyler and Fiske Kimball"39 and went on to quote the Jefferson, representing a free and eclectic cross between the
earlier attribution. Of course, he may not have received University of Virginia and Monticello.
Kimball's disclaimer when the brochure went to press, and
Historians of the period were romantic, too.
he did say that "it has not been possible to establish this At Williamsburg they painted a pretty picture of life in
attribution."40 But then he reprinted a passage from the eighteenth century America with everything clean and sparJournal ofLatrobe, which supported it:
kling, no animal smells or slaves' quarters; and all the buildWhile at Pittsburgh, he designed several private buildings that ings were restored—as well as they could be in 1929—to the
were erected there or in the immediate vicinity. Alsofor otherplaces.same moment in time. (They have subsequently been altered
Among these last were the residences of Henry Clay at Lexington as new information was accumulated.) The 1988 view of a
and Governor Taylor at Newport.41
living, changing, messy, confusing, overlapping history was
Those houses were later destroyed byfireand simply not in vogue at the time.
were not available for comparison, as Siple noted, but he did
Attempts were made to be accurate but many
not compare the Baum-Taft house with any of the docu- of the examination techniques available today were not
mented existing Latrobe buildings that were available, such known. Siple explained: "In two rooms and the hall we
as the Thomas Worthington house, "Adena," in nearby found traces of the original tinting of the walls—powder
Chillicothe, Ohio.
blue, lemon yellow, grey green. Here these colors have been
Siple's brochure is most useful for its descrip- used," in other rooms, "colors popular in the 1820's—grey,
tion of the methodology used during the restoration. The violet, and light blue."42 He noted: "With the exception of
building was both "restored" and converted to a museum: the mantels and chair rails, all of the original woodwork has
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
remained intact."43 He assumed that if it was there, it was
original. Charles Brownell and Richard Cote, two of the
scholars who came to Cincinnati for a symposium in June
1987, found woodwork from four or five different periods
and noticed inconsistencies in its use. They noticed peculiar
junctures between mouldings as well as other irregularities
proving that the house must have changed over time. But in
the early 1930's, the "authorities" assumed it was from one
or two building periods, and they took—or mistook—whatever they found for "original."
The restorers also felt free to add new elements that resembled the "original" ones they found. They
removed the Victorian mantels because they did not see the
Victorian era as part of the house's "history," and they put in
"new" ones salvaged or taken from other early nineteenth
century houses or designed to "match" existing trim. None
of the mantels in the house today are original. Even more
shocking by modern standards, they added new museum
casework in the Federal Style. In the 1980's it is standard
practice to insert display cases which are obviously modern
so that no one is given the impression that they were part of
the original building. The U.S. Department of Interior's
Standards require rehabilitators to do so, even on commercial buildings, whenever historic preservation tax incentives
are used. But in the early 1930's, it was thought more
appropriate to make the cabinetry "fit in" in order to create
the illusion of an early nineteenth century house.
The Baum-Taft house restoration was by no
means an unsophisticated one for its time. The architects
and administrators made a serious attempt to be accurate,
and they published information about the effort, explaining
what was new and what was old and why they had made the
decisions they did. The brochure is especially valuable now
since all of the paint samples and most of the other documentary materials were lost when a garage in which they
were stored suffered a massive leak. The brochure explains:
Portico, the Baum-Taft House
(TaftMuseum), c. 1900, collection of The Cincinnati Historical
Society. This elaborate Victorian entrance and the later
light fixtures were removed in
1931 during the conversion of
the house to a museum.
44
Queen City Heritage
An effort was made to restore the interior as nearly as possible to its
original condition. A careful inspection of the woodwork proved
that the original color was a pure white. ...In addition to the colors
discussed above, wall paper borders of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century have been used in several rooms. The dressing of
the windows was based on platesfrom Mcubles et Objets de Gout
published from 1819 to 1820. The overdraperies are, with the
exception of those in the offices, of materials dating from approximately 1820. We know from advertisements in the early papers
and directories that wealthy people of Cincinnati were buying
many things manufactured in France and England, and they
were in contact with such fashionable centers as Philadelphia
and Alexandria. .. . 44
Our idea with regard to the installation was to
provide a dignified background for the Toft collections—this background to reflect the feeling of a home of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. ... We were fortunate in obtaining several
pieces of furniture from the workshop of Duncan Phyfe which were
formerly in the Louis Guerineau Myers collection. These have been
supplemented by old chairs which harmonize with the Duncan
Phyfe style and provide visitors with seating accommodations which
do not destroy the spirit of the rooms. ...45
Even though there was general agreement on
this approach, there was one area where the architects and
the director did not see eye-to-eye. That was on the preservation of the Duncanson murals. Siple, being an art historian,
decided to restore them. The architects who were primarily
concerned with the restoration of the house wanted to have
them removed and replaced with wall coverings typical of
the 1820's. Siple's position was less consistent, but it was
more in keeping with museum philosophy and later restoration policy.
In the brochure Siple touches on some of the
problems of converting the building to a museum but
does not mention some of the ones that created the most
dramatic changes, such as the new visitors' entry on the
north elevation and the staircase to the second floor which
radically alters the impression one would have received in
the nineteenth century. Architects' drawings in the museum
archives show that they labored over the design for the
entrance, perhaps in an attempt to distinguish the new
public entrance from the original private one facing Pike
Street while preserving the illusion of an historic house.
They produced three schemes before one was finally approved.
Even so, the final scheme, like the new Pike Street entrance,
which Garber & Woodward also designed, resembles stock
neo-Federal details of the period. These insertions have
none of the rough quirky charm of the original woodwork,
a, b, and c. Garber & Woodward
Architects, Three Revised
Plans for North Entrance to
Baum-Tafthouse (Taft
Museum), 1931, Cincinnati,
Ohio. The architects produced
three schemes for the north
(visitor's) entrance before the
third (c) was finally accepted.
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
45
and most of the "matching" details no longer seem to the only man of this nature and capability at that time and who
match. The baseboards in the President's Room have a was designing residences in this immediate area.47
streamlined Art Deco quality, and the cabinetry with its
Although Garber placed greater weight on
anachronistic movable modern shelving hovers awkwardly
between reproduction and functionalism. A certain amount supposed similarities between Latrobe's work and the fabric
of detailing is unavoidably dated, even today when we have a of the museum than other writers had, his attribution rests on
much more complete understanding of historic American generalizations rather than observations based on comparative visual analysis. And he emphasized the fact that Latrobe
architecture.
The paper Woodie Garber prepared during was in Cincinnati around the time the house was built.
If Garber, an architect, supported his case with
the restoration is valuable for the insights it provides about
biographical
coincidence,
it should not be surprising that
architectural thinking on the subject at the time. Although
young Garber drew heavily on Siple's brochure, repeating Carl Vitz, a librarian, made it the primary basis of his arguverbatim many of its passages, he also surveyed and quoted ment. In a 19 5 4 Literary Club paper titled, "Benjamin Henheavily from the literature on the Baum-Taft house: Schuyler, ry Latrobe, Was He the Architect (?) of the Taft Museum,"
Kimball's initial positive attribution to Latrobe, Trollope, Vitz stressed the factors that could have led Baum to comThe Journal ofLatrobe, the Lytle-Baum correspondence, Law- mission Latrobe:
rence MendenhalPs Baum's Folly, Clara Longworth de Many reasons can begiven why Latrobe might have been sought out
Chambrun's The Making ofNicholas Longworth, Cist's Cincin-by Baum. To him, a banker, Latrobe'sfirst important commission,
the Bank of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, would have been
nati in 1 8 51, Martineau, Goss, Great Georgian Houses of
known. ... The residence of Worthington and Clay and of General
America, Meubles et Objets de Gout, Liberty Hall, the Daily
Gazette, the Cincinnati Directory of 1 8 3 6-18 3 7, papers in Taylor
the just across the river, could not have been unknown to him.
Taft Museum library, and the United States Department of Similarity ofinterests could have brought them together. Baum was
Interior's Historic American Buildings Survey. His paper wasGerman born, and Latrobe's mother was German and he had
amply illustrated, containing even a rare print found on spent his years of youth and early manhood in German schools and
book ends owned by the Comtesse de Chambrun, which he continental travel. Both men were interested in Ohio and Mississaid was "the earliest known drawing of the Taft Museum" sippi River navigation. ... Because ofBaum's interest in trade with
though it showed double hung windows instead of ones with New Orleans, he would have known that Latrobe had been engaged
small panes and the present curving front steps. He spoke to build its light house and waterworks. Both were interested in
with confidence and clearly believed that "the house as it gardens. Baum's enterprises had to do with machinery and we
stands today, with the exception of the wing addition and find Latrobe often occupied with mechanical engineering
few slight changes, is as near as it has been possible to restore, problems. ... He was well offfinancially. Baum would want the
the same as originally constructed."46 Yet, it is obvious that best and Latrobe was tops and available. This would all seem very
his knowledge of American architectural history was, by obvious, could we only find one clear documentary reference, or
1980's standards, sketchy. Like most writers of the time almost equally so, if Latrobe had leftfew or no records.48
and earlier, he attributed the house to Latrobe:
In fact he left voluminous records, and there is
no mention of the Baum house in them. There are letters
In researching and exploring the Taft Museum for restoration, my from Latrobe's wife and daughter which substantiate the
father, Frederick W. Garber, Architect, and I, separately then fact that the family had a ten-day unplanned stop in Cincinjointly, concluded that, though no documentation has yet substan- nati in March 1820, but they make no mention of a commistiated it, the Architect was certainly Benjamin Henry Latrobe. It sion. Still, Vitz pointed out a number of ways Latrobe might
cannot be justly ascribed to Hoban as it contradicts his recordedhave made contact with Baum at the time. He pinned his
work in its more English tradition and formality. Latrobe, whose hopes on circumstantial evidence, and hopes they were. He
imagination roved more freely yet as surely in his own creativity, very obviously wanted to be able to prove that Latrobe was
expresses a more French flair in his personal departures from rigidthe architect of the Taft Museum. When he found positive
tradition. This is indeed a residence in thegrand manner, but it is attributions, like Schuyler's and Kimball's, he used them to
not wood posing as stone, but wood expressed in its classic self withsupport his argument. But when he wrote to Talbot Hamlin,
inventive freedom. The sophistication ofproportion, the devices sothe leading Latrobe scholar of the time, and was discoursurely and uniquely applied here are indeed a signature ofLatrobe, aged, he decided to "cease theorizing about architectural
40
Queen City Heritage
styles and think of it only in terms of the conditions and journal or in Mrs. Latrobe's letter, both published in the Wilson
situations at the time and of the two men who either were orbook, if such an important job from his designs had been under
were not associated in the building." (italics his)49 In this wayconstruction at the time.50
his paper is typical of the commentaries on the Baum-Taft Hamlin's comments, of course, were cursory, and they were
house—and probably of human nature as well. It shows that not published, so it is not surprising that the earlier attributhe writer heard what he wanted to hear and that he trusted tions survived. It is largely because misinformation continued to be repeated that Ruth K. Meyer, director of the Taft
what he heard (or read) more than what he saw.
Talbot Hamlin's response to his letter con- Museum, and its staff decided to invite specialists in the
tains the first serious attempt to consider the authorship of field to convene for a symposium, comment on the attributions, and study the Baum-Taft house at first hand.
the house on visual evidence. In it Hamlin said:
William Seale, the foremost authority on James
This brings us to the Sinton-Taft house. There is not a mention or
51
trace of Martin Baum or of any Cincinnati work in the existing Hoban and author of The President's House: A History
began his presentation by remarking: "I had hoped that by
Latrobe papers. Furthermore, stylistically the house seems to me to
have nothing whatsoever to do with the kind ofarchitecture Latrobetonight I could tell you with absolute certainty that James
stoodfor. If one compares it, for instance, with the Van Ness house,Hoban designed and built the Taft Museum 160 or more
52
the plans and elevations ofwhich are in Fiske KimbalPs Domestic years ago. Alas, I can't." He explained that there was little
Architecture of the American Colonies and the Early Repub- documentary evidence to connect Hoban with any building
besides the White House and described what was known
lic, the difference in basic ideals becomes obvious. The interior trim
is quite different from anything I could attribute to Latrobe, and about his life and work. He ended: "There is really not much
to go on. I think the most concrete thing that can be said,
the whole design and its detail seem to me a harmonious expression
of the kind of "Late Colonial" or Federal work, against which in conclusion, is that the elusive architect of the Baum-Taft
Latrobe was always protesting. Moreover, the dates are against anyhouse had much in common with James Hoban, if only in
53
possibility of his connection with it, for he was much too busy in his remarkable ability to evade history."
Baltimore and too much worried about the completion of the New
Charles Brownell, the leading Benjamin
Orleans waterworks to make it probable that he was doing this Latrobe scholar, announced more confidently: "The ascriphouse at the same time. Surely there would have been some mentiontion does not have a leg to stand on, either in the form of
of it in the account ofLatrobe}s visit to Cincinnati given in his written sources, primary and secondary, or in the form of
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
47
architectural evidence."54 He pointed out that, quite unlike
Hoban, there is a wealth of material on Latrobe: "13 volumes of Latrobe journals, 14 sketchbooks by Latrobe, and,
most important, 19 volumes of Latrobe's copies of outgoing
letters" as well as "roughly 45 o architectural and engineering
drawings... and records written not by Latrobe, such as
institutional minutes and newspaper articles."55 He noted
that "in the thousands of pages assembled at the Latrobe
papers, as well as all of the evidence carefully compiled by
Heather Hallenberg from Cincinnati sources, there does
not exist so much as one recognizable phrase written by
Latrobe or a contemporary of his to link him to Martin
Baum's villa in any way, however tangential."56 Brownell
explained that the Baum-Taft house typifies a Renaissanceinspired Adamesque style against which Latrobe's austere
early Greek Revival work was very consciously reacting.
After conducting a complete and precise visual analysis of
the Adamesque manner, the Baum-Taft house, and buildings certainly attributed to Latrobe, he concluded:
a considerable knowledge of the carpenter-builder tradition,
concurred with Seale and Brownell. He suggested: "The Taft
Museum may NOT, in fact, have been designed by an architect. Rather... (it was) constructed under the direction of a
carpenter-builder who, more than likely, migrated to Cincinnati during the early 19th century and practiced his
profession in the city at the time that the Taft Museum was
built."58 He pointed out that in 1819 Cincinnati had a
populaton of just over 10,000, and that the City Directory
listed "between 80 and 100 principal house carpenters and
joiners employing about 400 journey men and apprentices,
2 5 brick yards employing, during the season of making
brick, about 200 workmen, 100 bricklayers, 30 plasterers,
and 15 stonemasons. In a city of over 10,000 citizens, there
were 800 individuals engaged in the building trade. Moreover, the 1819 directory did NOT list one architect in a city
that by March 1819 had 1,890 buildings, of which 1,003
were dwelling houses."59 He explained how carpenter-builders
worked and showed, convincingly, how the Baum-Taft house
The architectural evidence offers no supportfor any hypothesis thatcould have belonged to their tradition.
The symposium organized to find out "Who
the building incorporates ideas from a Latrobe design that the
builders adapted into something of their own. This circumstance, was the architect of the Taft Museum?" concluded with the
though, should not make anyonegrieve. The Baum-Taft house can impression that the answer was "no one." The research showed
that the question was infinitely more complicated than anystand on its own architectural merits.57
Richard Cote, an architectural historian with one had assumed, and the event produced a fuller history, as
well as a richer historiography, of the Baum-Taft house.
The Music Room, the Taft
Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio. The
Taft restoration began in 1929
at almost exactly the same
moment as the restoration of
Colonial Williamsburg. There
was a great fervor to take
houses back to their original
period.
James Hoban, Design for the
President's House, collection
of the Maryland Historical
Society, Baltimore, Maryland.
At the June 1987 symposium,
"Who was the architect of the
Taft Museum?" William Seale
dispelled once and for all the
attribution that James Hoban
designed the Baum-Taft house.
Dining Room, the Taft Museum, cases were designed by the
Cincinnati, Ohio. Federal manfirm of Garber and Woodward
tels salvaged from period
in the Federal style.
houses in the region replaced
ones from the Victorian era
during the restoration of the
house in 1931. The display
Spring 1988
The Baum-Taft House
1. This paper is an edited version of the introductory presentation at the
symposium, "Who was the architect of the Taft Museum?" which took
place in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 1 1 and 12, 1987, at the Taft Museum.
The symposium was conceived by Dr. Ruth K. Meyer, Taft Museum
director. The preliminary research for this paper and the other lectures at
the symposium was carefully and lovingly prepared by Heather Hallenberg,
an art and architectural historian on the Taft Museum staff.
2. G.E. Kidder Smith, The Architecture of the United States, Vol. II, "The
South and Midwest, An Illustrated Guide to Notable Buildings, Open to
the Public" (New York, 1 98 1 with an introduction by Frederick D. Nichols
and Frederick Koeper), p. 463.
3. Transfer of land from Daniel Symmes to Martin Baum, September 1,
1 812, Deed Book S., p. 284, on file at the Hamilton County Courthouse.
4. Marilyn Ott, "Martin Baum," a paper prepared for the Taft Museum
In-School Program, March 1975 with a bibliography from 1977, unpublished, p. 1.
5. H.A. Ratterman, DerDeutschePionier(Cincinnati, May 1 878),p. 42. The
information recorded here was derived from interviews with Baum's
descendants.
6. Carl Vitz, "Benjamin Latrobe, Was He the Architect (?) of The Taft
Museum," a paper presented to the Cincinnati Literary Club on March 1 5,
1954, unpublished.
7. Ott, pp. 1-4.
8. Ibid., p. 4.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 5.
11. Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, from a treatise of 1 8 8 8
published by the State of Ohio in 1904, p. 817.
1 2. Charles Frederick Goss, Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1 788-1912, Vol. I
(Chicago and Cincinnati, 191 2), p. 444.
13. Ott, p. 5.
14. Harriet Martineau, "A Retrospective of Western Travel," 1838, published in abbreviated form in The Taft Museum, a brochure by Walter Siple
reprinted from an article in The Bulletin of the Cincinnati Art Museum,
January 1933, pp. 6-7.
15. The transaction is recorded in Deed Book 24, p. 61 8 at the Hamilton
County Courthouse.
16. Charles Theodore Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati, Vol. I (Chicago, 1904), P- 54517. The transaction is recorded in Deed Book 34, p. 34, at the Hamilton
County Courthouse.
1 8. Martineau, p. 6.
19. Richard Cote observed all of these inconsistencies during a careful tour
of the building when he was in Cincinnati for the symposium in June 1987.
20. W.H. Martin, Map of Cincinnati for Insurance Companies and Real Estate
Agents Containing Every Lot and House with Its Number Classified According to
the Reference Below, Vol. II (Cincinnati, 1 8 5 5), p. 9.
21. A copy of this rare edition is in the archives of the Taft Museum.
22. Walter Siple, The Taft Museum, a brochure reprinted from an article in
The Bulletin of the Cincinnati Art Museum, January 193 3, p. 14. Siple was
director of the Art Museum and of the Taft Museum during the restoration.
23. Woodward Garber, "The Taft Museum," an unpublished paper, December 21, 1934, written by the son of the architect on the restoration of the
Taft Museum while he was a student in architecture at Cornell University
and working with his father on the remodeling, p. 16.
24. Goss, p. 444; Greve, p. 572.
2 5. Greve, Vol. II, p. 170.
26. Siple, p. 2.
27. Insurance Maps of 1 891, Cincinnati, Ohio, Vol. I (Chicago, 1 891), pp.
1
49
1-12.
28. E. Robinson and R.H. Pidgeon, Civil and Topographical Engineers,
Atlas of the City of Cincinnati, Ohio from Official Records, Private Plans and
Actual Surveys ( N e w York, 1883-18 84), pi. 4 .
29. Greve, Vol. I, p . 5 79.
30. Ibid.
3 1 . Ibid.
THE MUSEUM NEWS
PUBLISHED BY T H E AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS
VOL. VJ1I
The Taft Residence in Cincinnati, The Museum News, published by the American
Association of Museums, Vol.
VIM, No. 18, March 15, 1931,
the porte cochere (19101911) and the bay dormer
MARCH .15, 1931
windows were removed from
the exterior.
No, 18
Queen City Heritage
32. Goss, p. 444.
47. Ibid., preface.
48. Carl Vitz, pp. 345-346.
Schuy\cr, Architectural Record, Vol. 2 3 , 1 9 0 8 , p p . 341-346.
49. Ibid., p. 345.
3 5. Inland Architect and News Record, photogravure ed., Vol. 1 o, November 50. Talbot Hamlin, response to a letter from Carl Vitz, director of the
1 887, 70 and p. 1. This reference was discovered by Thomas J. Holleman, a Cincinnati Public Library, from Columbia University, New York City,
March 3, 1954, p. 2. The letter is now in the archives of the Taft Museum.
student of Charles Brownell, in 1974 and brought to my attention during
51. William Seale, The President's House, A History, White House Historical
Brownell's lecture.
Association, Washington, D.C., 1986.
36. Fiske Kimball, "Masterpieces of Early American Art," Artand Archaeol52. William Seale, "James Hoban—The Man and His Taste," Who was the
ogy, September/October 1919, p. 297.
architect of the Taft Museum? Symposium, June 1 1 and 12, 1987 (Cincinnati
37. I.T. Frary, Early Homes of Ohio (New York, 1970, reprint of 1936
1988), p. 1.
edition), p. 155.
5 3. Ibid., p. 11.
38. This letter is in the Taft Museum archives.
54. Charles Brownell, "Neoclassicism, B.H. Latrobe's Domestic Architec39-Siple, p. 4.
ture and the Baum-Taft House," Who was the architect of the Taft Museum?
40. Ibid.
Symposium, p. 44.
41. Ibid.
5 5. Ibid., p. 48.
42. Ibid., p. 5.
56. Ibid., pp. 48-49.
43. Ibid., p. 7.
$7.Ibid.,p. 56.
44. Ibid., p. 1 1.
58. Richard Cote, "Building Practices in 19th Century America," Who was
45. Ibid., p. 14.
the architect of the Taft Museum ? Symposium, p. 62.
46. Woodie Garber, "The Taft Museum," p. 5. It was recently discovered
59. Ibid., p. 63.
that this drawing was first published in Harper's Weekly, July, 1858.
3 3. Ibid.
34. Montgomery
..
^
E.A. Lloyd, Sketch ofSinton
Residence, 1890, Cincinnati,
Ohio. The Victorian entryway,
which was probably installed in
the mid-nineteenth century,
shows small panels of glass in
the lunette and is flanked by
arched side lights.