MOUNT VERNON — Belvederes perch atop some of the historic houses of Knox County, and the former Hannah Browning Home for the Aged — now the Christian Star Academy — on the corner of East Sugar and North Gay streets has a fine example.
A belvedere is a small, square lookout tower with windows, built on the roof of a house. Some are designed for use, others are not; the CSA’s belvedere falls into the latter category.
The historic building has undergone much renovation over the years, so perhaps there was an original stairway leading to the small door that is placed in the top of a 12-foot, second-floor classroom wall. But that’s not likely. However things used to be, today the door can be accessed only by an 8-foot ladder braced against the wall.
At the top of the ladder, visitors hoist themselves into a dusty, narrow passageway, then climb several wooden steps into the belvedere. It’s clear others have visited the structure, because pieces of walnut shells litter the floor.
“Raccoons,” said Sue Feasel, CSA’s co-founder, administrator and head teacher. “The house is made of soft brick, and I’ve seen raccoons climbing right up the outside walls. Sometimes they make so much noise that we pound a broom handle on the ceiling to scare them away.”
The belvedere is unfinished inside, in that the rafters, studs and lathe-and-plaster ceilings below are exposed. The remains of a short, old wooden ladder and walkway hang below the windows; apparently someone wanted to turn the space into a sort of widow’s walk. Here and there, flat nails with square heads protrude from the beams.
An old trunk, minus its lid, molders away on the floor, as does half a picture frame, some cloth, old shutters and all those walnut shells. The building’s sprinkler system extends even into the belvedere, for safety’s sake.
Janet Detmer, who was on the home’s board of trustees and later served, with her husband Grover, as the home’s director, remembered those pipes freezing and bursting one particularly cold winter, resulting in a deluge down the stairwells and much damage to some rooms.
“Some of the ladies had valuable antique furniture in their rooms,” she said, “so we all worked to carry things out of there. Water dripped down from the ceilings into the light fixtures — they’re saucer-shaped — and they would tip and pour water all over the beds. Oh, it was a mess.”
The glass in the two-paned, tall, arched belvedere windows, the bases of which are about 8 feet off the floor, is original, a bit wavy and thick. From those windows, visitors look down on the roofs of neighboring houses and the YMCA; the top of the bell tower of First Congregational Church appears to be on the same level as the belvedere.
The Ohio Historic Inventory dates the Italianate-style house to circa 1865 and calls it “The Henry L. Curtis Home,” adding that Curtis purchased it from the unnamed original owner in the 1860s.
The Women’s Christian Association purchased the house from the Curtis family in 1905 for $5,500, after “holding tag sales and rummage sales” to raise the money, wrote Fred Lorey in his “History of Knox County.”
In 1906, the WCA founded the Home for the Aged there. Hannah Browning, the wife of W.D. Browning, a dry goods merchant, was its first matron, so the facility — which housed 25 elderly women — was later renamed The Hannah Browning Home in her honor. The home closed in the late 1980s.
Feasel purchased the home in 1996 and managed its extensive remodeling into a school building that retains the 19th century architectural features and an old Kroeger Piano with “patent repeating action.”
The old red fire bell still hangs on a first-floor wall, a remnant of the safety features of a 20th century nursing home. It hadn’t been rung since she has owned the building, Feasel said, but she supplied a chair to climb on. It took only a few tugs on the chain to loosen the mechanism. The bell clanged true, echoing through the building, attracting the attention of students and releasing puffs of dust into the air.
The Knox County On High series will continue on Monday, Feb. 4, with an exploration of Zion Lutheran Church near Jelloway, at the top of Dutch Hill.
