National Register of Historic Places

McCune's Villa

Granville, Licking County, Ohio
Listed
April 21, 1982
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
82003602

About this property

Bryn Du Mansion is a historic house in Granville, a village in Licking County, Ohio, United States. The estate is owned by the village and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion consists of 52 rooms and has 12 fireplaces. It occupies a site about one-quarter mile north of Newark-Granville Road, and one mile directly east of the village of Granville. Local businessman Henry D. Wright originally constructed the mansion on this site as an Italianate Villa type structure in 1865. The outside of the building was made from sandstone quarried from the property. The villa had a central three-story tower flanked by two wings. The third story of the tower had three arched openings on each side and an arched central entrance facing the south. Jonas McCune became the owner within a year after construction and the property became known as McCune's Villa. Several others owned the property prior to John Sutphin Jones, a coal and railroad magnate, who purchased the property in 1905. Jones soon hired Frank Packard, a well known Columbus architect, to orchestrate the renovation of the mansion. The project took nearly five years and transformed the mansion into its Georgian-Federal style design. Among other renovations, Packard added the wings, increasing the width of the house from 100 to 140 feet, as well as the great Federal style portico on the south wall of the tower. The additions to the mansion were made from the same quarry stone as the original. Packard also constructed the outbuildings: the carriage house, the laundry house, and the horse barn. The interior of the mansion has a combination of Federal and Georgian motifs. The decorative plaster ceilings are in the Adams (Federal-McIntire) manner. Jones named the estate “Bryn Du”, which means Black Hill in Welsh, honoring his ancestral background and the area full of coal in which he made his fortune, namely southern Ohio. Jones' "town house" being Monomoy Place, currently the home of the presidents of Denison University, Jones bought and renovated the McCune's Villa to serve as the country house for his first wife Sarah Fidelia Follett ("Sally") Jones. Unfortunately, Sally died in 1910, just as the renovations were being completed. Jones then remarried 1 August 1911, and lived in the mansion with his second wife, Alice Baxter Bartlett Jones, and their two daughters, Sallie and Alice. During the Jones’ occupancy, dinner was served to Calvin Coolidge, William Howard Taft and Warren G. Harding at the Mansion. Lillian Gish and Katharine Cornell sipped coffee and Paderewski and Rachmaninoff played the Steinway.

Location

537 Jones Rd.
Granville, Licking County, Ohio
40.08535, -82.49242

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Stanbery, Edwin, Office
Industrial
1.5 mi
Dustin Cabin
Industrial
1.6 mi
Bancroft, A. A., House
Industrial
1.6 mi
Carpenter, Wallace W., House
Industrial
1.6 mi
Rogers House
Industrial
1.6 mi

Nearby Battles

Morgan's Raid — Newark Approach
1863Civil War
5.2 mi

Questions about this property

When was McCune's Villa listed on the National Register?

McCune's Villa was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 21, 1982.

What type of historic resource is McCune's Villa?

McCune's Villa is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for McCune's Villa?

The period of significance for McCune's Villa is recorded as the industrial era.

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