Kelleys Island South Shore District

Along the south shore of Kelley's Island in Lake Erie, a strip of land about 250 feet wide and three-quarters of a mile long holds forty buildings, most of them nineteenth century homes facing Water Street and the lake. Styles include Italian Villa, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne and Stick. Standouts are a large stone Italian Villa mansion with an octagonal belvedere, completed in 1865 by Addison Kelley, a three-and-a-half story Stick style resort hotel, a small Gothic Revival house with decorative gingerbread, and a stone meeting hall built by Datus Kelley in 1860-1861 that still serves as Town Hall. Inscription Rock, found by white men in 1834, is the only remnant of two Indian villages on the island. The district was recognized because it shows a settled, self-sufficient island community built on cedar, limestone and grape and wine production, and because much of its nineteenth century setting survives.