Happenings in the Highlands

The Return of the Highlands Newsletter

We are very excited to bring back the Highlands Newsletter. We hope that you will enjoy our monthly updates and share stories with us to share with the rest of the district. Afterall, there are so many wonderful tales to share of the past, the present and the future. 

If you are interested in submitting an article of interest on any topic you think the district and our friends would find interesting you can email it to us at info@highlandshistoricdistrict.org. 

Meeting Minutes January 2020
On January 21, 2020 the Highlands Historic District met at the Goldman House for the first meeting of the new year. On the agenda was a review of the 2019 Holiday Tour Results, approval for the by-law changes, and reviewing the nomination process for the upcoming officer and board member elections.
In attendance was Andy and Jamie Brickler, Mike and Carrie Hammonds, Brad Childers, Lee Hargrove, Sally Edgar, Carolyn Dishun, Kelley and Jeff Michel and Gayle Rich. 

If you did not get the chance to pick up your own district tour merchandise reach out to Jamie Brickler at 828-808-7685 by text or call or you can email info@highlandshistoricdistrict.org to arrange purchasing your tour goodies. Additionally we have tour booklets available for anyone who wants a keepsake, these are first come first serve so claim yours soon!

The district voted with unanimous approval of the official changes to the by-laws which moved meetings to the third tuesday of every other month at 6:30pm at one of the homes of a volunteered district member. 
 
We are currently looking for a volunteer to host the March meeting which will be held on March 10, 2020 due to the standard meeting day being a holiday. If you are able to host please contact Andy Brickler by phone at 704-500-7123 or email at info@highlandshistoricdistrict.org.

At the March 10th meeting we will be voting in the 5 board members and 4 officers - President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. All roles are open for nominations and all are up for elections. Please email us any nominations to info@highlandshistoricdistrict.org or contact Jamie Brickler at 828-808-7685. 

We will be emailing those nominated to verify they are willing to take on the responsibilities of the nominated positions and then we will email the ballot out on March 5th. If you have any questions about what the role responsibilities are let Jamie know and she can get the information to you. 

The final discussion of the night was about creating a contact list or forum where we can all reach each other quickly. We currently have emailing the officers to forward information, the Neighbors of the Highlands Facebook group and now we are creating a text group through the app GroupMe. Please text Jamie or Andy at the numbers listed above to be added to the group. we can send you a link to the app in the invite to join the group. 

A Little Goldman History
Since our last meeting was hosted by the Bricklers at the Goldman House we figured this was the perfect home to start our history spotlight. We hope you enjoy a taste of what the news was like in 1893.

The article above was found in the July 1, 1893 edition of the Hamilton Daily Republican Newspaper. At that time the area today known as the Highlands Historic District was known as Bellmont.  We are pretty sure the business Mr. Goldman was attending to was the building of 301 The Alameda since it was complete in 1894. 
When asked what they loved about their home the Bricklers had this to say, 
"The best part of being a custodian of the Goldman House is perusing old newspapers and trying to learn about the people who lived in this home and how the home has changed over the years. We are honored to care for our home and hope that all those who lived and loved this home before us like the additions of our style we have added to its history." 

Holidays in the Highlands 2019

Holidays wow in the Highlands!!!

The 2019 Holidays in the Highlands Home Tour was a wonderfully successful event. We hosted approximately 500 guests on the tour and we received some amazing feedback about how much fun they had.

As always, The Episcopal Church of the Ascension made a beautiful starting point for the tour through The Highlands Historic District. In case you missed these beautiful widows pictured to the right are in the the front of the sanctuary. These windows are especially special as they include representations of the industries that brought growth to Middletown. In the bottom left window the steel industry is represented and in the bottom right the paper industry. These are special to the Highlands as well since many of the families who built the homes in what known today as the Highlands also worked in these industries and funded building The Episcopal Church of the Ascension which is the jewel of our district.

This year we brought back the trolley. As always, A Savannah Nite was an amazing partner for this experience and we are looking forward to bringing back the trolley experience in 2021 as well.

For the first time ever the Highlands created a VIP tour experience where we utilized the amazing trolley to take our VIPs to each home on the tour. Not only did they receive a private ride they were invited into tour the upstairs areas of some homes and an entire additional home, The Cressman House, that was off limits on the self-guided tour. The amazing homeowners at one stop even had homemade cookies as a special gift.

All of our tour guests had the opportunity to visit 8 homes, 4 of which were new to the tour. The homes on the tour were, The Atkinson House, The Johnston House, The Hook Mansion, The Ranck Mansion, The Ahlbrand House, The Goldman House, The Aupperle House, and The Happersberger House. Also new this year, we added a Santa Selfie stop where our guest could snap some photos with Santa and grab a snack and a warm beverage.

We had such a blast bringing everyone into our homes to spread the holiday cheer. While the homes were decked in their holiday best, The Sidney Case McCammon Carillon rang in with the most cheer playing holiday classics thanks to the amazing talent of Carillonneur Noah Carpenter.

If you were not able to join us this year make sure you check out out tour page for some amazing photos from the homes on the tour and around the neighborhood and make plans to join us on our next holiday tour in 2021. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay in touch with the Highlands activities and events to come.

If you joined us on the tour this year you may have noticed that many of the homeowners welcomed photos. We are so excited to see what you found amazing so make sure to tag us in your social media photos with #LoveTheHighlandsLife or #2019HolidaysInTheHighlands

Thank you for all your support and the love you show for our beautiful neighborhood.

Growing up Goldman in The Highlands

Can you imagine what our beautiful neighborhood must have looked like when Charles Goldman first moved into the house now known as 301 The Alameda. June Haller wanted to know that and on February 1, 1974 Marcus Goldman, son on Charles and Minnie Goldman replied to her letter. Below is a section that describes the early 1900s Highlands neighborhood through his childhood eyes. Let us know in the comments what you think.

In those far off years none of the streets of our neighborhood were paved and the sidewalks were of cinders.  Most of the streets were lined on both sides by tall Carolina poplars. Almeda Street was then called “The Almeda.”  In Spanish Almeda means “poplar grove” or a street lined with poplars. In those days there was a fairly wide strip of lawn as a median in The Almeda, which was almost a foot higher than the roadway on either side opposite the house. Southward its elevation steadily declined until at the end of the long block, it was actually lower that the roadbed on either side.  At this south end two pussy willows grew in a depression.

On the north side of Superior Avenue there was a small watercourse which was dry in midsummer, but quite a torrent after a melting of deep snow or a heavy rain. It began in a marshy depression at the east end of the avenue and flowed along it until it was within two or three blocks of Sutphin Avenue where it turned north and ran along the edge of Frisch’s cottage garden. My mother named the watercourse Rainy River, and I greatly enjoyed playing in it when a small boy. There were sometimes frogs in its marshy beginnings.

 A small boy could have found few better places to grow up then 301 The Alameda, Middletown, Ohio. Except for the residence of the Thomas Hetzler family opposite there was no house within three blocks, and the open land in all directions belonged to either my father of my grandfather and I could roam at will.  The great expanse of fenced-in blue grass about three blocks to the south, known as the Butcher’s Field, was then no longer used by a butcher but pastured a very considerable number of cows and horses owned by individuals who paid a small monthly sum for keeping them there. The field extended south to the Blue Ball Pike a small stretch entered the Butcher’s Field and flowed across it to the southwest to Dick’s Creek.  There were frogs and crayfish in this little stream but no fish, although I repeatedly put small fish into it. I was much puzzled by the quick disappearance of those fish. Now I am inclined to think the stream was polluted by a dairy farm a short distance to the East, for the stream was certainly larger than some in which I have caught fish and well populated by lower organisms upon which fish feed.

 A large flock of killdears lived along the stream and flew up with loud cries at one’s approach.  There were also many meadow larks in the Butcher’s field and occasionally swarms of cow birds settled down to feed among the cattle.

 The inhabitants of the field interested me most were the thirteen striped or federation ground squirrels, locally called “gophers.” They dug holes in the pasture, and it was feared that horses or cows might step into them and be lamed.  I was given a Marlin lever action 22 caliber rifle on a birthday (the twelfth or thirteenth I believe) and was told that I would be paid five cents for every dead ground squirrel I produced.  The Marlin was a very accurate weapon and I was a good shot by nature.  I not only kept myself in ammunition but made additional pocket money by killing ground squirrels.  The little animals were usually at the mouth of a hole when the bullet hit them and, apparently by reflex action, they very often tumbled down it, even when hit in the head.  Fortunately I was accompanied by two “gopher hunters” even more eager than I, the family’s two Saint Bernards, Queen and her son, Prince.  They accompanied me when I went shooting and would dig at the hole until they were able to retrieve the dead ground squirrel, thus making it possible to present the carcass for payment.

 It was at this time that a number of flickers settled in the neighborhood and developed the bad habit of beginning at dawn to drum on the roof of the house not only to the destruction of shingles and timbers of the gables but to the immediate annoyance of the family, since sleep was impossible once the birds had started to hammer.  My father, after a month or two of suffering from the flickers’ misplaced activity, secured, from the proper authorities, permission for me to shoot the flickers.  Of course I could not shoot them while they were on the roof, but flickers, unlike other woodpeckers, feed on the ground. Those which were disturbing us settled, from time to time, in our private pasture on the north side of Superior Avenue. I managed to shoot a number of them there, and eventually the survivors understood the message and prudently withdrew from the neighborhood.

The Highlands Historic Blog Begins

With the New Year approaching many changes are also coming for the Highlands Historic District. One of which is the new website. The goal is to have the website be a source to all those seeking information about the history of our homes and of the families who have cared for them over the years.

When we started rebuilding the website, we found that there were so many stories yet to be told from our district. That meant we had to stop and take a second look at our plans. The Highlands Historic District began with a mission to preserve not only the beauty of our homes but also to preserve the memory of the people who lived in the Highlands from the beginning to the present.

Now the plan is to make a website that is ever changing. This way we can always add a new story to our tale, and what better story to start with than who we are.

As a former student of History who grew up touring the Biltmore Estate with my family every weekend, my dream was to one day own a beautiful historic home. I married a wonderful man who had one fatal flaw, he wanted to live in a new construction home. I know crazy right. Don’t worry I showed him the error in his ways and now he is a little more history crazy about our beautiful neighborhood than I am.

My name is Jamie. My husband, Andy, and I live in the Charles Goldman House. I am a Jeweler and he works for GE Aviation as a computer guru, at least that is my very technical term for his career. We moved to Middletown after we looked at a home on The Alameda. The tree lined street stole our hearts and we never looked anywhere else.

Did you know “alameda” means “a public walkway or promenade shaded with trees”?

Since moving into 301 The Alameda life has been full of fun. We have had 5 bat encounters, we are on year 3 of our Brickler Haunted Mansion display, and we helped the HHD organize the 2017 Holiday Home Tour. There is so much history and so many stories we want to share with you and we hope you will have some to share with us.

So here is to the future and the stories to come in 2019. Make sure you follow us here and on our social media. Let us know what interests you and what you want to see and know more about.

#LoveTheHighlandsLife