The Lombardy Apartment Building is a historic

apartment building An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement ( Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) ...

in downtown

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. A

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

structure erected in 1885, it is a seven-

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Narrative, an account of imaginary or real people and events ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting ** News story, an event or topic reported by a news orga ...

building with a metal-covered

Mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called French roof or curb roof) is a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer wi ...

,Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 622-623. built with brick walls and a stone

foundation Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses * Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face * Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2010-10-04. Constructed by the firm of Thomas Emery's Sons,Gordon, Stephen C., and Elisabeth H. Tuttle. '.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

, 1978-12-11. Accessed 2010-10-04. Cincinnati's leading real estate developers during the 1880s, it was one of the earliest large apartment buildings erected in the city. It is one of four large apartment complexes erected by the Emerys during the 1880s; only the

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

and the Lombardy Apartment Buildings have endured to the present day. Both the Lombardy and the Brittany were built in 1885 according to designs by

Samuel Hannaford Samuel Hannaford (10 April 1835 – 7 January 1911) was an American architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the best known landmarks in the city, such as Music Hall and City Hall, were of his design. The bulk of Hannaford's work was d ...

; at that time, his independent architectural practice was gaining great prominence in the

Cincinnati metropolitan area The Cincinnati metropolitan area (also known as the Cincinnati Tri-State area or Greater Cincinnati) is a metropolitan area with its Urban area, core in Ohio and Kentucky. Its largest city is Cincinnati and includes surrounding counties in the U. ...

. Among the distinctive elements of the Lombardy's architecture are plentiful

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s with Corinthian-style

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

s, an elaborate

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

, and multiple

balconies A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

. Although the walls are primarily brick, they are decorated with elements of

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

, along with

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

details and projections. In 1976, the Lombardy Apartment Building and many surrounding buildings were designated a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

, the West Fourth Street Historic District, and added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Four years later, the Lombardy was individually listed on the Register, due to its well-preserved historic architecture; it was seen as one of the region's finest examples of late 19th century urban Victorian architecture. Dozens of other properties in Cincinnati, including the Brittany Apartment Building, were added to the Register at the same time as part of a

multiple property submission The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

of buildings designed by Samuel Hannaford.

References

{{Samuel Hannaford and Sons TR Residential buildings completed in 1885 Apartment buildings in Cincinnati National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Victorian architecture in Ohio Historic district contributing properties in Ohio Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio