CINCINNATI — For more than 100 years, it protected the remains of some of Cincinnati’s rich and famous, including soap maker Andrew Jergens, department store heiress Mary Shillito and TV pioneer Ruth Lyons. But some Clifton area residents are worried about the future of Hillside Chapel and Crematory, now that its owner confirms a sale is possible.
“There are discussions, but nothing is final,” said Don Catchen, a Northern Kentucky funeral home operator who bought Hillside Chapel in 2010.
Catchen wouldn’t comment on rumors that Gilbane Development Co. is trying to buy the 3.9-acre site for a student housing development. Gilbane officials did not respond to requests for comment.
“This just seems to be a tragedy in the making,” said Linda Ziegler, treasure of the CUF Neighborhood Association. “It’s in bad repair. There’s a lot of water damage. And we are concerned that there are plans perhaps to tear it down in the near future.”
Ziegler said Uptown neighborhood groups have talked about drafting a “letter of concern” over the possible sale.
“There are two issues,” Ziegler said. “The important one is all these souls resting in there and what’s going to happen with them.”
Catchen said the property won’t be sold without a plan to preserve more than 10,000 urns on site.
“Those ashes are my main concern,” he said.
But neighborhood activists are also worried about preserving the site’s history, starting with its establishment in 1887 by a group of founders that included Benn Pitman. He was an author, designer and wood-carving instructor whose former home on Columbia Parkway is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pitman was a leader of the American Decorative Arts movement, which brought nature into homes by creating furniture, ceramics and wood carvings inspired by local plants and wildlife. Pitman’s work and the art of his former students are a major focus of the Cincinnati wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
“Many people don’t know him, but he was a hugely important person in Cincinnati,” Ziegler said. “I can’t imagine, if somebody tears down that building, that they’re going to care about that stuff.”
The building itself is a work of art, full of stained-glass windows and ornate urns made of brass and Rookwood pottery — much of it arranged in niches devoted to entire families. The remains of Ruth Lyons occupies one of those niches, along with her husband, daughter and pianist, Lash Clifford.
In addition to Lyons, Jergens and Shillito, Hillside Chapel is also the final repose for Cincinnati arts patron Patricia Corbett and Albert Vontz, founder of Heidelberg Distributing.
“I love these people. They’re my family,” said Becky Criss, a secretary at Hillside Chapel, who gave WCPO a tour and some history lessons on Dec. 8. “A lady was in here yesterday, wanting to know about George Reeves, the first Superman.”
The 1950s TV star died in Los Angeles with a gunshot wound to the head. But he was cremated at Hillside Chapel on February 10, 1960, according to an index card summarizing his final destination: “Cremains expressed to mother, Mrs. Helen Lescher Bessolo (in) Pasadena, Calif., Feb. 12, 1960.”
“His mother questioned his death,” Criss said. “Some say he was suicidal. Some say he was murdered. The world will never know.”
Ziegler is hoping history will be enough to save the building. But she has her doubts, given the frenzied pace of new student housing developments in the Uptown neighborhoods near the University of Cincinnati. Hillside Chapel is already zoned for multifamily housing. Although it’s in a hillside district prone to landslides, it isn’t clear that would be an impediment to new construction.
“I don’t know that anybody has any standing to do anything,” Ziegler said. “It’s private property. If they sell it, they sell it.”
But this isn’t the first time that the building’s future was in doubt. In the 1980s, a group of local funeral directors organized the Cincinnati Cremation Co. to own and operate the facility. That lasted until 2009, when a bankruptcy filing led to its sale.
Catchen was vice president of Cincinnati Cremation at the time. And he was the only bidder when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey Hopkins ordered its sale to cover a $27,000 mortgage and $66,000 in past-due property taxes. Bankruptcy records show the sale required the new owner to protect the remains on site.
“No bids shall be accepted unless and until, as a part of the purchase, the purchaser agrees to maintain all of the urns, which have interred remains on site,” said the bankruptcy plan of reorganization, in a September 2009 filing. “The purchaser further agrees to maintain these urns in the manner by which they have been maintained since the formation of the company.”
That language also made its way into the property’s deed, according to records at the Hamilton County Recorder’s office.
State law could be another problem. It requires cemetery operators to “establish and maintain an endowment care trust” to pay for “maintenance, supervision, improvement, and preservation of the grounds.”
The statute defines a “columbarium for the deposit of cremated remains” as a cemetery.
Ziegler said the building is not widely known, but history buffs and family members with relatives are hoping to spark a community discussion that preserves the building once again.
“There’s nobody who doesn’t care about it,” Ziegler said. “If you tell anybody they say, ‘What? It’s hard to believe that this could happen.’”
