Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
By 1872 the Village of East Cleveland had grown unevenly, the part that abutted the City of Cleveland, along Euclid Avenue south of Superior Street, being the most developed. It was here that Liberty had concentrated his real estate interests. When the City of Cleveland proposed annexation of this portion of the Village of East Cleveland, Liberty Holden was among the strongest supporters of the resolution. Annexation was approved by the voters of East Cleveland on October 24, 1872. The next year Liberty joined with William Halsey Doan, H.C. Ford, and Otis Boise and bought the Wright House, Cleveland's oldest hostelry, for $35,000. The Wright House was moved from its location at Euclid and Fairmount to a new site on Cedar Avenue. Much to local Clevelanders' regret, however, the new owners closed the hotel's saloon, which had had the distinction of being Cleveland's longest open bar. Three years after moving the Wright House, Liberty and his partners built the Fairmount Hotel on its old site. The new structure was a brick multistory building with fancy stone trim that overlooked the pleasant grove soon to become Wade Park. The hotel quickly became popular with Cleveland society, and many prominent families maintained pieds a terre there. In 1898 he sold the Fairmount to the Hollenden Hotel Company, which he also owned. By 1932 the property's value had grown to $400,000.
Successful as it was, the Fairmount was no match for Liberty's next hotel project. Recognizing the need for high-grade, apartment-style housing in the downtown area, Holden purchased the Philo Chamberlain property that fronted on Superior, Bond, and Vincent streets. Over the next few years, Clevelanders were treated to the sight of the construction of one of the grandest hotels west of the Ohio River. The new edifice, named The Hollenden, was officially opened on June 7, 1885. The new hotel was a pioneer of its type and took its place among the ranks of the best in the nation. In this project, as in Liberty's earlier Fairmount Hotel, Liberty's in-laws played a significant part: the corporation formed to erect the building included Charles H. Bulkley, another of Liberty's brothers-in-law, on its board.
William Ganson Rose, author of Cleveland, The Making of a City, described the Hollenden best:
Electric lights, one hundred private baths, and fireproof construction added to the Hollenden's fame. Its high, paneled walls, massive redwood and mahogany fittings, exclusively designed furniture, and "crystal" dining room marked it as sumptuous. George F. Hammond, architect, designed much of the interior. Holden consented reluctantly to provide a dining room. Politicians claimed it and made it famous as a meeting place. "Hanna hash;' Mark Hanna's favorite dish, originated here. The Superior Avenue hostelry, which took its name from an early English form of the name "Holden;' was "a small talk center for precinct workers;' the Plain Dealer reported. In the gay nineties, it was the scene of colorful balls and festivities. Its bar was the longest in town. George Meyer, who had a shop in the Hollenden, was the best barber in the United States, according to Elbert Hubbard. Five presidents McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Harding-heads of foreign governments, celebrities of stage and lecture platform, political enthusiasts, industrial giants, and champions in sports were its house guests.
Liberty and his sons Liberty Dean and Albert maintained rooms in the Hollenden. Liberty was accustomed to staying overnight at the hotel when in the city on business, saving him the trouble of traveling by carriage out to the suburb of Bratenahl, where he maintained an estate on the lake. His bedroom in the Hollenden was furnished in the dark, heavy style of furniture favored by many in the 1890s. The hotel was owned by the Hollenden Corporation, and daily management was in Dean Holden's hands. Dean loved his father's hotel and apparently was a successful manager. In the spring of 1897, when Liberty Holden became convinced that McKinley's election signalled economic recession, Dean argued against his father's decision to cut 25% from the hotel's operating budget, saying that while the cut would reduce expenses in the short term, its long-term effect would be to undercut the very quality that had made the Hollenden famous throughout the Midwest. As a measure of Dean's managerial skill, when the hotel was sold to new owners in 1925, the sellers received $5 million. Later, the old Hollenden building was completely rebuilt, losing all of its original charm and fittings. The name was preserved, however, and a new hotel stands on the original site and serves Cleveland's business community.
When Liberty and his family first moved to East Cleveland they purchased a 43-acre farmstead in the section of the village named Dean's Corners, located on what is today Euclid Avenue opposite Wade Park. This was a working farm, supplying food and vegetables for the dining room of the Fairmount Hotel. As it was near downtown Cleveland, was connected to the city's hub by traction car surface railways, and was one of the largest open tracts of land owned by a single person, the Dean's Corners property was the prime site under consideration when a home was sought for what later became Case Western Reserve University.
Case Western Reserve University (so named in 1967) was the outgrowth of a merger of the Case School of Applied Science and Adelbert College of Western Reserve University. Case School had been founded in 1881 by the Case family and was first located in their residence on Rockwell Street. Headed by Dr. John N. Stockwell, a self-educated star gazer who later was called "the dean of American astronomers;' the school's faculty at the outset included six teachers. Enrollment in 1881 was 16 students. Instruction was in the applied sciences rather than the liberal arts. Cleveland still lacked a local university.
In 1880 Dr. Hiram C. Haydn, a trustee of Western Reserve Col-lege in Hudson, Ohio, convinced his fellow trustees that moving the college to Cleveland would be in the best interests of the institution. Dr. Haydn also persuaded Amasa Stone, a wealthy Clevelander, to make the move practical by a substantial endowment. Stone agreed to donate $500,000 to underwrite the new institution, with these terms attached to the gift: the citizens of Cleveland had to find a suitable site for the new university; the name of the foundation had to be changed to Adelbert College of Western Reserve University, to honor his son Adelbert's memory; and the members of the board of directors of the university had to be approved by Stone before they could be seated. As it turned out, these terms did not prove a hardship.
A committee of four was formed to locate a suitable site for the new university, one of whose members was Charles H. Bulkley, Liberty's brother-in-law and his partner in the corporation they had formed that would complete, three years later, the Hollenden Hotel. It is not surprising that the site selected was Liberty's farmstead at Doan's Corners. The new university was dedicated on October 26, 1882, with ex-President Rutherford B. Hayes and D.C. Gilman, president of Johns Hopkins College, delivering the principal addresses. The new board of directors, chosen by Amasa Stone, numbered among its members John Hay, lately assistant secretary of state (later secretary of state under McKinley and Roosevelt); President James A. Garfield; and Liberty E. Holden. Two new buildings were constructed on the eastern part of Liberty's homestead, beside the Case School of Applied Science's campus. Thirty-one years later, in 1913, liberty endowed the Albert F. Holden Foundation for medical research at Western Reserve.