South Park is the best neighborhood in Dayton for corner stores. Nearly all have been converted to residential use, but many of them retain some beautiful architectural details. One of the best examples is the building at the NE corner of Hickory and Morton.
It was built in 1879 and is a combination storefront and house.
In years past it operated as a former saloon, grocery store, and even a “house of ill repute.”
Preservation Dayton has written about the building’s architecture:
“Typical Italianate features include the prominent bracket decoration at the roof line and the Classical pilasters dividing the store windows. The storefront entrance is angled at the corner. Notice the Eastlake porch at rear entrance. Wrought iron decoration highlights the first and second levels. The windows are decorated with limestone arches with keystones above.”
The porthole windows on the side are another feature that can be found on other commercial buildings in South Park, and are often seen on former saloons.
Overall the building is smaller than those that grace busier corners like the 3rd and Linden Market Building and the Dietz Block on Wayne, and it fits seamlessly in with the residences around it.
South Park resident Tom Ostendorf rehabbed the structure in the 1970s, and he said that it may be the only house in Dayton with an original cast iron balcony.
The building was in rough shape when Ostendorf acquired it. He spent five years working on it, and behind the house he built a new carriage house to replace the original which had to be torn down.
Ostendorf thought that balcony gave the building a “Bourbon Street flavor” which inspired the “Orleans house” name. In spring of 1979 he held a 100th birthday party for the home, appropriately a New Orleans-style costume affair.
The name “Orleans House Antique Exchange” remains to this day, but it’s unclear how long that endeavor actually lasted (the only later mention I can find is in 1982). Regardless, the home remains one of South Park, and Dayton’s, finest examples of a building type that was once much more ubiquitous around town.
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