Bell Mansion

Set back from the street on a large lot shaded by tall old trees, this brick mansion at 225 Oak Street in Hillsboro was completed in 1883 to designs by Cincinnati architect Henry Bevis. It is a three-story Chateauesque house laid in common bond, with a steeply pitched hipped roof topped by metal cresting, gabled dormers and three corbelled chimneys. Small wooden porches and covered balconies carry Eastlake-style posts, spindles and pendants. A stone dateplate reading 1883 sits above the first-floor windows of the projecting front bay, and the entrance has double wooden doors beneath a stained glass transom. Inside, original woodwork, wainscoting and hardwood floors survive, along with a carved walnut staircase that rises three stories beneath a skylight of colored glass. The house was listed as part of a group of buildings linked to C.S. Bell, a prominent local inventor and manufacturer, and was judged architecturally significant as well. Its roof was recently re-covered, but the original slate color pattern was kept.