MARCH 2012

This month marks Clifton Park’s 100 year anniversary!

THE KRNCEVIC GIRLS ON CLIFTON ROAD PLAYING IN THE SNOW!

CLIFTON CHATTER

March 25, 1912 is the date of the Clifton Park Trust. This trust gave us our Clifton Park identity. For 100 years we have been a community held together by our ownership in common property spread throughout our neighborhood.

The Trust requires 5 trustees to assess our property to maintain this common property. All improvements, according to the trust, states that: “Any extraordinary expenses for improvement of the property shall be met by voluntary subscription”.

Because of the limitations placed on the trustees by the trust, Clifton Beach Improvement Association (CBIA) was formed in 1948 to organize fund raising efforts to make improvements at the beach.

This year CBIA would like to make major improvements to the playground. We want to move the playground south and open up the lake view to the grove tables. In the process of moving the playground we will also need to replace much of the old equipment that can’t be moved with new and safer equipment. The playground will be moved in phases. The more money we collect the more new equipment we can add. The goal is to ultimately collect 100k.

Please participate and contribute to CBIA’s 2012 activities. Mark your calendars for June 23rd. The entire beach has been reserved for the festivities. That day has been set aside to celebrate our 100 year anniversary. We will start out the day with activities for our children. Later we plan on home tours and will end the evening with the Tea Dance.

Let’s all celebrate our past and improve the play ground for the future.

Constance MansellPresident of Clifton Beach Improvement Association

Clifton Beach by Jeff Mansell

Type to enter textTim was instrumental in obtaining and helping CBIA acquire the cliftonbeach.com

website.

Tim reserved and paid for the website name for many years at his own expense. He was also

indispensable in helping to develop and mentor our development of the

cliftonbeach.com website.

Without his help and patience it would have been impossible to

have and maintain our wonderful website!

We will be forever grateful to Tim!

THANK YOU!

Type to enter text

Adele BartlettJean BjornNancy BinderKevin BrownCourtney CottendenDave DillenDonna FeserJennifer and Greg WachiliaJohn ForgettaKaren HillJerry HoegnerWendy IsaacsTara KerivanAlicia KerriganMargarita KrncevicMelissa LaSpisaTim ListonLaura and Dick LittleMichael LojeJeff Mansell

CBIA would like to thank our “Volunteer of the Year”: Tim Liston

CBIA would also like to thank all the volunteers who helped with all the 2011 Activities!

Marcello and Shelley MellinoMelissa MetzgerJill O’BrienToni NanniJennifer SchwelikNancy ScottCarolyn Seelbach, her daughter, Peggy, and son-in-law MichaelJulie SzaboTom and Linda TurnerTerry and Susan WalkerErin WeberClint WeddellKathy WeissAlison YonkersJohn and Wendy ZacharyTerri Borchert

We apologize if we have missed anyone! We really appreciate all of your help in 2011!

CBIA Calendar of Events for 2012

Beach Clean-Up: May 12th Time: 8:30 a.m. Rain Date:  May 19th   Time: 8:30 a.m. Tea Dance/100 year Celebration:  June 23rd all day at Clifton Beach Friday Night Suppers --June 8th--July 13th (family)--August 17th--September 7th

July 4th Parade

Camp Out:  September 15th  Clambake:  October 13th  Halloween Party: October 27th

If you would like to volunteer to help with these events please contact thecliftonbeach@gmail.com 

BEACH CLEAN-UP MAY 12TH

Beach Clean-Up on Saturday, May 12th (8:30 am to 2:00pm)VOLUNTEERS

NEEDED FOR:

1. FOOD PREPARATION

2. PLANTING FLOWERS

3. BEACH HOUSE CLEANING

4. VOLLEYBALL COURTS

5. LANDSCAPE TRIMMING

6. REPAIR CHAIRS

7. REPAIR BOARDWALK

8. CLEAN BEACH FRONT

It has been a tradition (started by Jim Harris) that the trustees will serve a breakfast of coffee and donuts. It is also tradition that a resident of Clifton Park travel around the neighborhood with a megaphone to wake everyone up and remind them to come to Beach clean Up! Will you volunteer!!

This is the first CBIA function for 2012 (rain date May 19th). Please join us to clean-up, wash off and pretty up our beach for the summer season! Remember if you help, you have an opportunity to reserve a beach table for the CYC July regatta/fireworks.

For lunch CBIA is planning to have a chili cook-off! Please RSVP to thecliftonbeach@gmail.com if you would like to enter the first Clifton Beach Chili Cook-Off. CBIA will supply pop and water. Dessert donation will be greatly appreciated!

Remember to bring gloves, big and little shovels, rake and be prepared to clean, plant, rake and fix!!

Clifton Beach Centennial CelebrationClifton Beach was formed 100 years ago, in 1912. This legacy has given our community many hours of enjoyment with friends and family and lasting memories of days spent in the sunshine by Lake Erie.

Saturday, June 23, has been set aside to celebrate the Centennial. Events planned for the day include Children’s Activities, in the morning, a House Tour, in the afternoon, and a “Tea Dance”dinner and auction for adults, in the evening at the Beach House. Everyone who cares about Clifton Beach,especially the residents of Clifton Park and the Lagoons and the members of the Clifton Club will be invited to attend the Centennial Celebration.

As part of our commitment to the on-going renewal of Clifton Beach and its facilities, all funds raised from the Centennial Celebration, will be dedicated to rebuilding and updating the children’s playground. The Clifton Beach Improvement Association has set a fundraising target of $100,000 dollars, to provide a safer and newer facility for the younger members of the Clifton Beach Community.

So please save the date: June 23rd!

Children’s “FunDay” includes: games, games and more games! Hula-hoop roll, 3-legged races, sack races, games of chance, a drawing contest and hotdogs, popcorn and lemonade!

Tour of Century Homes

Tea Dance at the Clifton Beach House, which will include cocktails, dinner and a silent auction.

Children’s “FunDay” on June 23rd

We are planning a fantastic celebration on the morning of June 23rd. Our Children’s Committee is busy developing the programs and games for this exciting day! The Children’s Committee consists of Jean Bjorn (Committee Chairman) Julianne Gillespie, Jim McGowan, Kathy Weiss, Courtney Cottenden and Melissa Metzger.

We would love input! Please join this committee and help decide what games your children would like to play and what refreshments and activities that would make this day a very special day for children!

Please contact Jean Bjorn or email: thecliftonbeach@gmail.com to volunteer.

Century Home Tour

If you are a Century Home owner and would like the opportunity to invite neighbors to experience your bit of your history, please contact Libby Khuri (libbykhuri@hotmail.com) or Erica Williams (ewilliams@hahnlaw.com). This is great excuse to get your house all ready for the summer season a bit early!

We will also need volunteers in 1-2 hour shifts for home tours the days of the event!This is a very fun job and takes little time. So please email us if your are interested in volunteering the day of the event.

Tea Dance at Clifton Beach

The Tea Dance Committee is hard at work planning this year’s special celebration of the 100-year anniversary for Clifton Park. The Tea Dance Committee Chairman this year is Nancy Binder. She has gathered together a great group of people this year to help make this celebrate the best one ever! Please join us in the fun! If you would like to volunteer please contact Nancy Binder at ndbinder@gmail.com.

We would like to thank everyone in advance who has volunteered!

Operations Committee: Mike Davis, Clint Weddell, Kevin Brown and Tom Feser

Publicity Committee: Mary Ann Henderson, Jerry Hoegner, Rhonda Loje and Karen Lenehan

Ticket Sales: Jennifer Schwelik, Jack Ruppert and Rhonda Loje

Silent Auction Committee: Candis Parry, Shelley Mellino, Peggy Demitrack, Dennis Butler and Linda Nintcheff , Wendy Zachary,

Home Tour Committee: Libby Khuri and Erica Williams

Food Committee: Margarita Krncevic, Sandi Baker, Gail Tanner, Kate McBride and Amy Frost

Decoration Committee: Jill Gilmore, Carrie Klenkar, Eleanor Truett and Jerry Hoegner

Children’s Committee: Juliane Gillespie, Jim McGowan, Kathy Weiss, Jean Bjorn, Courney Cottenden and Melissa Metzger

To be Assigned: Frank Schwelik, John Henderson, Trish Vargo and Richard Tanner

REMEMBER! If you can not volunteer in the planning of this event, please consider volunteering a few hours “the day of the event”! We could really use your help to make his event run smoothly! Please email thecliftonbeach@gmail com to volunteer the “day of the event”.

CBIA 2012 Playground Improvement Proposal

We are always grateful that so many Park residents have supported various improvement projects funded through CBIA in the past. This year is the 100 year anniversary of Clifton Beach managed by the Trustees on our behalf. They are limited by the Trust to collecting assessments from the property owners for maintenance and management. Improvements fall on the Park residents’ initiative and as such, CBIA was created decades ago to facilitate this function. Fundraising is the main focus of its many social events during the year. This centennial year will see a major effort to obtain resources for rebuilding the playground.

Credit for focusing our interest on the playground rightfully belongs to the Trustees who saw the need to address the playground area East of the Clubhouse last fall and noted the condition of some of the aging structures and that the location had a prime Beach view much more suited to use for picnic tables. They also pointed out that the parent’s ability to supervise their children in the playground could be markedly improved by moving the playground to a more convenient location further south, in plain view of the now closer picnic tables just East of the clubhouse. CBIA and the Trustees are now in the final phases of reviewing plans for this project for which the CBIA would like to set a very ambitious fund raising target for this centennial year. Moving the playground and installing new state of the art climbers will likely require a budget of around $100,000. The project may need to be done in stages but although the budget seems daunting, the payback for our children is well worth the effort. Dividing this by the number of Clifton Park households or even the larger number of total Beach user households leads one to realize that a project of this size is quite possible.

This is truly a valuable and long term improvement worthy of the effort and cost. Anyone who has watched Beach activity will recognize the central role of the playground. Many of the readers may have grown up playing on these structures where many long term friendships were forged. The current equipment probably dates back over 50 years and has numerous safety issues. The Trustees will have some of these aging structures removed shortly. Any new structures should be expected to last the same if not much longer as they are made of more durable materials and more importantly, will have been designed and built with child safety in mind. Although the CPSC guidelines are just that and not mandated, essentially all new playground equipment is built to meet or exceed those specifications.

Below are two views of the playground at the beach taken from Google Earth. The first is as it is now, the second shows the CBIA proposed new picnic area in fresh green grass (without tables) and the relocation of the playground in Siesta Key sand (minus equipment). Two new boardwalk style access paths are illustrated in gray as well. One serves the grove picnic area; the other allows guests on foot to walk to the clubhouse area once they are past the guards, avoiding the busy road. Proposed equipment CBIA is discussing with the Trustees include two climbing structures for young and older children, two swing sets for young and older children and a new merry-go-round similar to the current one but with modern safety features. A photo of a typical modern climber for older children is shown at the end.

CBIA Playground Improvement Plan

Current Playground

CBIA Proposed Plan

New playground

New Grass and picnic ta

bles

New walking pathBeach House

New

walking path

Fence

Fence

Volleyball

Playground Equipment Proposed

Classified Ads...

Bee Clean Car Wash at 18425 Detroit Avenue will continue until further notice to give $2 off your $10 car wash if you have a Clifton Park sticker. Lenny Weiss owns and operates this car wash. He would like to also mention that he does detailing at that location to protect your car from the SALT. He says “SALT IS GOOD ON FRENCH FRIES BUT YOUR CAR AIN’T NO POTATO!

For the last 50 years Bee Clean Car Wash has been serving the Lakewood community with its full-service car washes. Located on Detroit Avenue, this car wash can accommodate your car, van or truck, with fast service and affordable prices. If you don't need a

No specific pieces have yet been chosen, but the above new install gives an idea of some possibilities. If we do this, we will have a lot of very happy children, and that makes happy parents and a fun Beach day. Sincerely, Arthur Dueck CBIA Special Projects Member

Our Journey to find our home’s history.........Many of us who have read the Blythe Goering books have wondered how she was able to find all the early history of our properties in Clifton Park. Last month I stumbled on the answer. I had previously looked into the Lakewood Historical Society and the archives at the Cleveland State library, both of which store some old records of various types. However, the real treasure trove is found in a little known historical building at 2905 Franklin Boulevard which houses the Cuyahoga County Archives. The building itself is a historical treasure built in 1874 as a Victorian mansion which originally was the home of Robert Russell Rhodes. John Meckes owned it from 1889 until 1914 when it was purchased by the County for use as a detention home. Since 1978, it has been the home of the County Archives and is a repository of all the old records of the county including land titles and deeds, births and marriages, and death records and wills of our forebears. In addition, it also stores numerous other forms of historically relevant collections of data available to the public for research. It is open to public on Mondays, and Wednesdays-Fridays, 8:30 am to 3 pm.

I received my introduction to this vast archive from Maureen Pergola. Without her expert help and guidance, I would have been hopelessly lost amid the masses of old books and files. Her love for her work is apparent as she tells of some of the sleuthing tasks she has accomplished. Indeed it turns out that she regularly assisted Blythe Goering in gathering the data on the homes in the Park for her publications and easily found the original sources to show me. Her familiarity with Clifton Park has even greater historical roots. She often played on our Beach as a child as a guest of Dr. Grady’s daughter Claire and owned a bookstore in Lakewood (which incidentally sold copies of the Blythe Goering history books) prior to her current role as researcher at the archive.

Maureen Pergola

The oldest records of the area seen on a 1860 map, refer to Clifton Park as being in part of Rocky River in Rockport township (Figure 1). There appear to be a few buildings drawn on that map near the center of what is now Clifton Park. In 1890, a map indicates the creation of the Hamlet of Lakewood inside Rockport but that map does not contain details of the Clifton Park streets (Figure 20). It is still shown as a single area with some buildings (Figure 3). It is interesting to note that the lagoon as we see it today had not yet been dug out at that time. The street details appear first in an atlas of the suburbs of Cleveland Ohio from 1898 which shows the original lot layout and first street name proposals (Figure 4). A more detailed map with the current street names is recorded in 1903 drawn at the request of the Clifton Park Land an Improvement Company (Figure 5).

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Property owner’s names were noted on the subsequent map books which can easily be used to follow the early property ownership. These records show a surprising degree of early land speculation by the sometimes rapid flurries of ownership changes. Microfilm copies of the actual deeds are all available on a computer searchable data base available to the public at the Cuyahoga County website using the name and date range for the property of interest. I was easily able to find copies of my own original property deed of 1905 to Marie Dunbar and track its sale to Nellie Hill in 1917. The original owners of some of the lagoon properties are noted on a map of that area from 1913, showing that many early Clifton Park property owners also owned the boat docks there (Figure 6). Alexander Winton and F. C. Case are among the more well-known early residents to house their boats there at the time.There must certainly be many more sources of data in family archives which would be fun to review along with stories of the early life of the settlers of Clifton Park. I hope more of these emerge during the 100 year anniversary of the Clifton Beach Trust. Arthur and Wynne Dueck 1104 Forest Road

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AROUND CLIFTON PARK

NEW CLIFTON PARK & LAGOON DIRECTORYDear Neighbors, On behalf of CBIA, Wendy Isaacs and I are now working very hard to put together a new Clifton Park & Lagoon directory. Since we have not had a directory in a very long time we would like to verify information and to get permission from all residents. Information needed:1)  How would you like your name/s listed?2)  Please add your address (to help us a bit)!3)  What phone number would you like listed?   If you would like to be included in the directory, please email thecliftonbeach@gmail.com back with information needed listed above. This email will verify that you would like your information published in the New Clifton Park & Lagoon directory. Thank you in advance!

Karen Lenehan’s interviews with century homeowners: 18159 Clifton RoadIf these walls could talk, the stories they would tell is an old saying that befits an old neighborhood like Clifton Park. The hundreds of walls in the neighborhood’s homes would tell countless stories of family, friendships, love and life. And as the neighborhood prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Clifton Park Trust, it is only right that some of these stories were shared, especially the stories of the neighborhood’s century homes.

Mike Loje estimates about 4 dozen century homes in the neighborhood, and he should know because he lives in one with his wife Rhonda. Their home at 18159 Clifton Road is styled as a Mediterranean revival with arts and crafts overtones. (They got that description from Bob Gaede of the Cleveland Restoration Society.) It has a stucco exterior, clay tile roof and was built in 1911.

According to Blythe Gehring’s “Vignettes of Clifton Park II” the Loje’s are the 9th owner’s of this 3-bedroom home. They bought the house in 1994. It was the first house their realtor had shown them and they fell in love with the house. Incidentally, they had no idea about Clifton Beach, or the privileges that would come with homeownership in the park. However, their first offer on the house went ignored.

Their realtor kept showing them other homes, but something about 18159 Clifton kept them from deciding to settle somewhere else. Rhonda, originally from Indiana, had built a new home in Strongsville before she met Mike, an eastsider living in Shaker Heights. For both, it was the style of the older homes and the quality of their construction which kept them from looking anywhere but Lakewood. Their realtor convinced them to make another offer on the house, and in this case, the second time was the charm.

As is the standard with so many older homes, there was work to be done. So Rhonda began what she considered

Low and behold, it was the grandson of the woman who used to live next door but who had grown up Jane McSweeney of 18159 Clifton Rd. The grandson was interested in purchasing the house next door, which had belonged to his grandmother Jane McSweeney Nicolay in the 1960’s.

In the end Rhonda and Mike developed a dear friendship with Jane who now lives in Arizona. She even sent all of her original wedding photos taken at 18159 Clifton for Rhonda to copy. The one photo of Jane posed at the base of the stairwell was all it took to convince Rhonda and Mike that the stairwell had to be restored to it original beauty. Incidentally, the Loje’s have traveled to Arizona to visit with Jane and watched her slide show of the neighborhood as she describes it, “before the Elm Tree Disease took so many trees.”

her job for three years and set about to strip all the painted woodwork in the home. With the number of doors and windows in the house and all the trim associated, not to mention the front stairwell and beams across the living room ceiling, this was no small task. While the results are stunning, in Rhonda’s own words, “I would never do that again.”

Yet it was in the midst of this job when perhaps the walls did start to talk. According to Rhonda the living room was completely torn apart in a state not fit for anyone to see when a knock came at the door.

Karen Lenehan’s interviews will continue throughout our celebration year of 2012. If you have a century home she will contact you soon!

Jane’s grandson hasn’t been the only connection to the house who has shown up at the doorstep. The Judd family lived in the house in the 50’s and early 60’s, and their children regularly stop by. In fact, so many in the neighborhood have received those “knocks on the door” by former residents it has created a living history that will hopefully continue into the next century.

For those interested in the ownership history of their homes Gehring’s Vignettes II book is a terrific source. It lists each home by specific address and the ownership history through 1996 when the book was published. With that and the Internet it is easy to learn who owned the home previously. Mike and Rhonda know that the son of the second owner of their house was the Lakewood Municipal Court Judge and that previous owner Ihor Suchorvesky was the first Ukrainian to scale Mount Blanc.

While so much has changed since the neighborhood was originally planned in 1893/1894, so much has also stayed the same. Clifton Park is a neighborhood of beautiful old homes, so many of which have been preserved and restored.

Rhonda likens the project of restoring an older home to that of an archeological dig. Removing woodwork for stripping and uncovering decades of once trendy decorating styles can reveal so much history of a home. Mike unearthed a delivery receipt for gravel during a phase of his “excavation.” The receipt shows the recipient to be George Barriball – the builder of 18159. This builder was located at East 131st St. and Miles Ave. Considering the time period in which the house was constructed, it means this builder traveled by horse to Lakewood to get the job done. No wonder he had the gravel delivered to the site.

That gravel, and the majority of the original construction, still exists today. A side deck was added in the 70’s and a bay window converted to a doorway to that deck are some of thee minor changes made to the house over the years, but the house is still pretty much in its original state. There was once a back stairwell into the kitchen which has been removed, a sleeping porch converted into the master bedroom and the master bath has been completely overhauled and expanded - a project the Loje’s took on themselves.

Another project was rebuilding the garage. While plat maps and architectural drawings show the property to be one way, the reality of the situation can be something completely different as so many in the neighborhood have discovered. Add to the mix that just behind the garage is a “Moses Cleaveland” tree which impacts four other residents, and stripping the woodwork doesn’t seem so bad. (FYI - During the sesquicentennial commemoration of Moses Cleaveland’s founding of the city of Cleveland, trees that were more than 100 years old were designated as Moses Cleaveland trees.)

The garage was rebuilt, the tree is till standing and the surveyor used by the Loje’s for the project has asked them if any of their neighbors needs a surveyor, please don’t recommend our company!

Rhonda is the former president of the Lakewood Historical Society and Mike can be called a history buff, to put it mildly. We appreciate this house and its architecture. It is why we haven’t changed it, including the windows,” Mike said. Anyone driving by the house can see the number of windows just facing Clifton Rd. Even on a blustery day, with the wind causing the house to sing, the interior is bright and warm. This house was meant to be seen through, said Rhonda. And it is the lightness and airiness to the flow of the house, which has Rhonda speculating that 100 years from now, it will still be a happy home.