Birckhead Place Historic District

Birckhead Place is a secluded, gated neighborhood of sixty-eight homes on twenty-four acres, about two miles northwest of downtown Toledo. Brick-paved curving streets, cast iron street lamps, a surrounding iron fence and two communal parks give it a self-contained, park-like character. The trustees of the Curtis estate platted it in 1904, on land once farmed by stove and lumber dealer Peter H. Birckhead. Most houses went up between 1904 and 1930 and show Craftsman, Bungalow, Georgian and Colonial Revival, and Tudor or Jacobethan styles. In 1922 residents incorporated the Birckhead Park Company, a non-profit corporation that owns and maintains the streets, parks, sidewalks, fences, sewers and lights. It was modeled on the earlier Bronson Place Company and applied the idea to a larger neighborhood of seventy-eight lots. The district is recognized for this ownership model, for its early planned layout, and for its architecturally distinct houses built for Toledo business figures. Nine homes built since 1940 are considered non-contributing.