The beautiful building at 20 Livingston Ave, just off of Huffman Ave, is known as the Oscar M. Gottschall house.
It was built c. 1870 for Gottschall, a prominent Dayton attorney, and his wife Octavia Soule who were married in 1869.
It’s an unusual building which stylistically “bridges the transition in American Gothic to the High Victorian.” It is also considered to be the greatest Gothic Revival structure in Dayton.
As a lawyer, Gottschall was a charter member of the Dayton Bar Association and also served as its director. His firm Gottschall & Turner was well-known in the area. He also was a veteran of the Civil War, having interrupted his legal education at age eighteen to join the 93rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. After the war he returned to Dayton and resumed his studies under the direction of Edmond S. Young.
Octavia Soule was the daughter of one of Dayton’s most well-known early artists, Charles Soule. Although Octavia didn’t pursue art professionally herself, she was still highly regarded for her talent with watercolors and did much to support the fine arts in the community.
The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, the 48th landmark in the region to receive the coveted designation.
The nomination form highlights some of the house’s features, from the Gothic corbelled tables and the triple Romanesque mullion gable window to the “very long and tall gable dormers (with) vine patterned trim, finial and pendent, and semi-circular window with 4/4 double hung sash.”
A 1977 article described the house as “incongruously painted off-orange” (the colors have changed since) and “perched like a giddy Valentine on Huffman Hill.”
That article also highlights its “grapevine scrollwork on eaves and gables; elaborate carpentry cresting the two-story porch; lacy wrought iron weathervane and finials; and steep banks of chimneys. All features enhancing the whimsical yet imposing elegance of this relic of a more leisurely day.”
The home is located a few blocks east of the Huffman historic district. At the time of its construction it would have felt very far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city, but that very same year saw the launch of the first horsecar line, which was soon extended to run down E Fifth St nearby, which accelerated development in the area.
In the 1918 map below you can see both Huffman Ave and side streets dotted with homes, but it has not been fully built out as there are still plenty of empty lots.
The house appears to have been converted to a nursing home in the early 1950s. Sometime after that a new addition was built in two parts, but according to the nomination form, they “are not obvious to casual view and have little impact on the historic values of the structure.”
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