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| Hawthorn Hill: The Wright Family Home  n the decade following their first powered flight on December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright rose to international fame. The family began to receive prominent visitors from the fields of aviation, science and politics to their West Dayton home. The Wright’s began to plan for the construction of a suitable new home, and purchased 17 acres of land at the corner of Harmon and Park Avenues in Oakwood in February of 1912. The local architectural firm of Schenck and Williams was hired to design Hawthorn Hill, with suggestions from Orville and Katharine. Although Wilbur jointly purchased the land in Oakwood with Orville, and was involved with the plans for the house, he died in May of 1912, before construction began in late summer of that year. Even before the home was completed, the Wright family was frequent visitors to their future home. Their father, Bishop Milton Wright, documented many visits to the property in his diary, which he made entries into almost every day. Orville and Katharine would take their nieces and nephews to Oakwood for picnics and walks in the woods. The Bishop noted that the Wright family celebrated the July 4th holiday in Oakwood in 1913, writing that “[we] went to the top of Orville’s new house, and saw the fireworks at the fair grounds till 9 o’clock.” In January of 1914, Orville and Katharine traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan to purchase furniture for Hawthorn Hill. By this point in the early twentieth century, Grand Rapids had become the furniture capitol of America. The Wright’s furnished their home with such quality brands as Berkey & Gay and Century Company. The Bishop noted in his diary entry for January 8, 1914 that “Orville and Katharine came home on 8:00 morning train. They purchased at Grand Rapids several thousand dollars of furniture, to be delivered the middle of March. The Wright’s moved into Hawthorn Hill on Tuesday, April 28, 1914. In his usual style, the Bishop wrote in his diary “we moved from 7 Hawthorn Street, Dayton, Ohio to Hawthorn Hill, Harmon Avenue, Oakwood, Ohio…we arrived in a auto-taxicab at 3:45 afternoon.” Orville was a confirmed tinkerer, who designed some of the more memorable aspects of Hawthorn Hill, including a system to adjust the heat of the furnace by pulling a chord in the living room, a whole house vacuum system designed to make work easier for the housekeeper, and the circular shower system in his bathroom. Orville also designed delivery doors into the icebox from the outside so that the deliveryman would not track water on the kitchen floor. These doors were closed and bricked over in the years following Orville’s death. While the Wright’s were in residence at Hawthorn Hill, two funerals and two weddings were held in the home. Bishop Milton Wright’s funeral in 1917 and Katharine Wright Haskell’s funeral in 1929 were both held here. The weddings of two of Orville’s nieces, Ivonnette and Leontine were held at Hawthorn Hill in 1919 and 1923. Photographic evidence from the years 1914 to 1948 is somewhat scarce, so we do not know exactly how Hawthorn Hill appeared in the early years. We do, however, know just how the house looked just a few short weeks after Orville Wright’s death in January of 1948. In a remembrance, Ivonnette Wright Miller recalled that Edward A. Deeds, a longtime friend of Orville’s, sent a photographer from NCR to Hawthorn Hill on February 17, 1948. These photographs document the house as it appeared at the time of Orville’s death, and are a very thorough record of Hawthorn Hill. The décor of Hawthorn Hill was simple, yet elegant, expanding on the simple lines of the Berkey & Gay furniture from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The area carpets in the living room were crafted in Donegal, Ireland, and were beige with geometric patterns. One story about the carpet is that when it arrived from Ireland, Orville was unhappy with the way the carpet appeared around the fireplace. He sketched what he wanted for the carpet on a piece of paper, sent the diagram to Ireland and had the carpet remade. Hawthorn Hill had been decorated in the Victorian style, with drapes covering the windows and doors of the house. The woodwork throughout the house was stained a deep, rich brown color. Orville was unhappy with the color originally used to stain the woodwork, so he created a color that he was satisfied with and stained the doors and woodwork himself. Orville’s library at Hawthorn Hill remains today as it appeared at the time of his death in 1948. When the house was renovated for the first time in 1949, this room remained unchanged, as it was chosen as the room most reflective of the personality of the inventor. Here Orville was surrounded by his collection of books on a wide variety of topics, including world and american history, aviation, children’s literature and a complete set of the Journal of the Ohio Historical and Archaeological Quarterly (the organization that published this journal became the Ohio Historical Society). The library still shows the gold damask wall-coverings that are original to the house. Orville invented a set of tools that he used to remove the wall-coverings each year for their annual cleaning. The chair in the library has a specially designed foot rest that Orville used to elevate his leg to relieve pain from injuries suffered in a 1908 plane crash in Virginia. The book-rest was also designed by Orville, and could be switched between either arm of the chair. Following Orville Wright’s death in January of 1948, the National Cash Register Company (NCR) purchased Hawthorn Hill in November of that year for a cost of $75,000.00. Edward A. Deeds, then Chairman of the Board, and S.C. Allyn, then President of NCR, saw the “for sale” sign on the lawn of Hawthorn Hill, and they had NCR purchase the home for use s a corporate guest house. In the fifty-three years that NCR has owned Hawthorn Hill, the house has been renovated and updated to reflect a more modern approach, with an emphasis on entertaining. Many original pieces of furniture, purchased by Orville and Katharine in 1914, have returned to use throughout the home. Orville’s study still expresses both his personality and the spirit of the house. In a tribute to Hawthorn Hill’s original owners, all of the guest rooms bear the names of members of the Wright family, and have welcomed visitors from all over the globe. Although Hawthorn Hill has been changed in appearance over the past eighty-seven years, the spirit of the house remains the same: welcoming and gracious. The Wright family would still recognize and be comfortable in the home that they designed so long ago. 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 Hawthorn
Hill, Orville Wright's home from 1914 - 1948. |
