Normandy Manor: The Levine House

It’s time to show you the actual houses that were on the North Avondale Home Tour last weekend. This 1937 Normandy Manor, known as The Levine House, will be our first stop.

But first, to set the scene, I’m going to tell you how I embarrassed myself a little that day. I don’t know why, since it would be easier to let you think I’m always stylish, unwrinkled, and pulled together when I’m out in the world, but I sort of feel like you’re all my friends now, and friends will love me even when I’m a total dork, right? (Please say yes.)

I’m not putting the story here on the front page, though. Click “more” if you want to know what a mess I can be.

Okay, so I made an attempt to look nice Saturday for the house tour, and whenever I make an effort, something goes awry.

Here’s an example. In the ’90s, when I worked as a designer’s assistant in Indianapolis, we were commissioned to decorate one of the McMansions for the city’s annual Home-a-Rama. The designers were invited for a special preview of the homes the night before the show opened, and I got a bit dressed up for it. But somehow, within five minutes of setting foot on the home-show grounds, I managed to spill half a can of Diet Coke down my new white shirt. In every photo taken of me that night, I had to pose strategically with my purse in front of it.

Classy!

I admit I can be just a little absent-minded at times (everyone who knows me is saying “a LITTLE?”) and the minute I start daydreaming or, in this case, gawking at houses, food and drinks attack.

I wore some new tan pants and a white shirt to the home show last weekend (I’ll never learn). I enjoyed chatting up all the other “house people” I met–they were all so friendly, so interesting, so knowledgeable about old houses.

Then, when we were walking through House #4, I stepped into a room that had a large mirror and caught a glimpse of myself. What was on my tan pants? I looked down and there, stuck to my thigh, was a big old Hershey’s kiss. Whaaaat? How did that get there? It was completely embedded into the fabric of my pants, like it had melted into them.

I had eaten a few kisses in the car on the way over and clearly had not been careful enough about it! I removed the candy as best I could, but I still had a big, round, brown stain right there and no way to scrub it off. The Tide-to-Go stick that I faithfully carried in my purse for such emergencies was completely dried out. Errrgh. I thought of all the people I had talked to all throughout the day and imagined what they must’ve been thinking about the chatty girl with the chunk of chocolate stuck to her leg.

And this is how I spent yet another house tour painstakingly covering the offending spot with my purse. (Feel free to share your own embarrassing stories to make me feel better now. I’d appreciate it.)

Okay, enough with the true confessions. On with the tour.

The Levine House was built during the Great Depression. The Normandy Manor, or Norman Revival style, is less common in Cincinnati than the Tudor Revival, but the two share details like the hipped slate roof and the semi-circular Norman tower in front. There are diamond-pane casements in the tower and front bay window, and the front door is beneath a dramatic arch (shown below).

Cincinnati Magazine provided a supplement that featured photos of the interior of the Levine House. Since I wasn’t allowed to snap any myself, I scanned them for you to give you an idea of what we found inside:

In the picture above, you can see the original plaster cove moldings that were hand-painted and glazed.

I wish they had a better photo of the children’s bath with the yellow tile. Squint closely and you can see that they have pictures from various nursery rhymes (here we can see Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet) inset into the walls here and there. They circled the room and weren’t just in the tub. The bathroom also had the original (yellow) sink and toilet and built-in storage.

In the photos below you can see the dining room and the living room with its extravagant Rococo marble mantel, salvaged from a Victorian house.

Stay tuned–I’ll show you more photos from the house tour later today of the first luxury apartment building in the Cincinnati area, built in the 1920s.

(All rights to these interior photos belong to Cincinnati Magazine and the Cincinnati Preservation Association.)

If You’re Hooked on Old Houses:

• Walking and Gawking in Historic North Avondale, Part 1
• Walking and Gawking in Historic North Avondale, Part 2
• 1908 Mitchell Mansion on Rose Hill
• The Telford Mansion
• The Spite House
• Cobble Court
• Stokesay Court
• Coco Chanel’s Parisian Apartment
• 1908 Gaslight Mansion
• Mark Twain’s Mansion
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s William P. Boswell House
• Sears Honor-Bilt Home: The Lynnhaven Model
• Sears Modern Homes: House Kits from Catalogs
• Pheasant-Hill Farm

Tagged as: Cincinnati, fireplace, historic house, House Tour, mansion, Normandy Manor, North Avondale, Ohio, old house, Real Estate, Victorian