Ambleside, Estate of the Day
Filed under: Estates
Last year I heard that Marge Schott's Indian Hill, Ohio mansion home was on the market for $5.4 million. Now real estate commenter extraordinaire Spectacular Bid led me to the new listing with lots of pictures and a new lower price, $3.95 million. The estate of the late Cincinnati Reds owner, who died in 2004, is a huge 19-room castle-like rambler on 15 acres. The Marge and Charles J. Schott Foundation is selling the property which was first named Ambleside and was built in 1928 by architect John Henri Deeken to resemble a mansion in Ireland. The home has steep gables, a slate roof, stone tower and leaded windows and seven bedrooms. The Cincinnati Enquirer calls it "a bit of a fixer-upper" and they aren't kidding. The listing pictures show a home that is beautiful and old but very dated and in need of restoration. There are eleven fireplaces and has a buzzer system used to call servants and servants' quarters near the children's wing. The home, with its labyrinth of rooms, small upstairs windows and heavy wood may be out of step with the needs of today's wealthy buyers.
Schott lived in the house for fifty years and after her death the contents of the home were auctioned off. The entire property is 60 acres but the rest of the land has been split off into nine five-acre lots which will be sold separately. Ambleside joins a host of multimillion properties on the market in Indian HIll, many with a similar castle-like feel and built in the 1920s by prominent Cincinnati-area businessmen. None of them seem to be in as rough a state as Marge Schott's palace which would likely take a dedicated team and many dollars to restore it to its former glory.
