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Stan Hywet Hall Not For Us Alone (Published in Over The Back Fence, Summer 2000)
From the richness of the carved wooden walls of the entry, to the huge Music Room, and on to the guest rooms each with their own bathroom, the home that F.A. Seiberling and his wife, Gertrude, built resounds with the feeling of hospitality. In 1915, Seiberling, co-founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, moved his wife and six children from a modest Victorian home in the bustling city of Akron to a 65 room mansion on a thousand acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and nature preserves. The Latin words over the front door say “Not For Us Alone.” The Seiberlings shared their home with many including President Taft, Helen Keller, Will Rogers, and the Von Trapp family. Their legacy continues to be enjoyed by thousands of visitors who discover the history, appreciate the beauty, and warm to the hospitality of Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. Stan Hywet (pronounced STAN HEE-WIT) is old English for “stone quarry.” An old sandstone quarry, as well as orchards and woodlands, came with the land they purchased. Gertrude Seiberling was meticulous in her preparation for their undertaking. She enrolled in classes at Buchtel College (now the University of Akron) and studied architecture, interior design, and horticulture. She engaged Warren Manning, a noted Boston landscape architect to design the grounds to maximize the natural features of the landscape and blend them with the house. Charles Schneider, a Cleveland architect, traveled with the family throughout Europe gathering inspiration from three English estates. It resulted in Stan Hywet being one of the best examples of Tudor Revival architecture in the United States. After four years of planning and 3,000 detailed blueprints, Stan Hywet Hall was built between 1912 and 1915. Each room is unique. The Great Hall gives you the feeling of a Tudor castle. The ceiling rises two stories above with large tapestries on one end and a hunter’s trophies accenting the other. The animal heads were purchased. Seiberling was not a hunter. The master bedroom on the second floor was reconstructed from a 16th century manor house. The original bedroom had a window. When the room was reassembled, the window overlooked the Great Hall. Mrs. Seiberling used it to chaperone the youngsters. The Music Room is undoubtedly the most spectacular. Its centerpiece is an 18 x 36 foot area rug with a “tree of life” motif. The rug was hand woven in India for Mr. Seiberling. When he learned it would take a couple of years to finish, he sent lamps to India allowing the weavers to work in shifts and finish it in eleven months—in time for the grand opening celebration of Stan Hywet. But the Music Room really belonged to Gertrude. One of her greatest interests was music. She had been an opera singer, performing once at the White House. The Music Room entertained guests with such accomplished performers as Paderewski, Rosa Ponselle, and James Melton as well as the Seiberling grandchildren who performed a little Christmas play each year on the stage at one end of the room before opening their gifts. The acoustics are perfect. When played, the pipe organ gives the feeling of being in a great cathedral. Of course, Mr. Seiberling had his room too. The Billiards Room, in addition to the large billiard table, sports its own built-in humidor for the men’s cigars. Close by the floral room had its own cooler where Mr. Seiberling could keep his beer cooled. At the end of the Billiards Room is his home office where many business deals were consummated. Throughout the home the rooms are lavished with carved wood paneling including American oak, chestnut, black walnut, sandalwood, teak and rosewood. Painted canvas designs grace the ceilings in many. The dining room has a mural painted on canvas that borders the ceiling and depicts Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. While grace and beauty are so obvious, many of the innovations in the home are not. Cleverly hidden in the wooden linen fold paneling of the hallway is a door that opens to a private phone booth. It was one phone in a 37-station telephone system. An electric passenger elevator could take someone to the third floor infirmary. And, if a visitor looked closely enough, they would see a round outlet in the baseboards of some of the rooms. This was the internal central vacuuming system. Moving through the home, the windows not only bring light to the indoors but provide views to the expansive 70 acres of gardens remaining. Looking out the back, the tranquility of a reflecting pool set in the middle of a green lawn laced by flowerbeds offers a picture perfect setting to the enclosed porch area. But the gardens must be experienced from the outside to be truly appreciated. Many brides have walked down the path on one side of the manor house that is lined with white birch trees standing at attention as though they were soldiers with sabers drawn and crossed overhead. The path ends in an overlook that provides a view of the old sandstone quarry that is now a lagoon area. On the other side of the house a grassy path is lined with rhododendron bushes and appropriately named Rhododendron Allee. As the visitor circles around to the back of the house, a walled English garden designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman, a pioneering female in landscape architecture, invites exploration. It has been restored to the original intent of Shipman and features a reflecting pool with beautiful pastel flowerbeds. There is also a Japanese Garden, a Rose Garden, an Elliptical Garden, a Great Meadow and much more. Flowers bloom from early April through October. Toward the end of the manor house tour, one of the last pictures taken of Mrs. Seiberling hangs on the wall. It is the picture of a rosy-cheeked lady with eyes that twinkle from behind her glasses. Her smile seems to radiate from the inside out. You would never guess that this was the lady of the grand manor. She looks ready to invite you for cookies and milk in the garden. But that was the Seiberlings. The house was “not for us alone.” Their generosity will allow generations of visitors to Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens to drink in the magnificent color and fragrance of the outdoors and contemplate life in an early 1900’s manor house. ©Karen Robbins All text on this page is copyrighted in my name. Please obtain permission for its use. |
Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens is located 20 minutes south of the Ohio Turnpike (exit 173/11 or 180/12), and is accessible by I-77, SR 8, I-71 and I-271. Stan Hywet is 35 minutes south of Cleveland and 25 minutes north of Canton. [Click here] for hours of operation, events and special tours.
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