Lakewood Lore

Social swirl centered on the elegant Cliff House

Lakewood's most notable and sometimes notorious tavern-hotel of the 19th Century was the Cliff House, located on the east side of Rocky River, near its mouth, about where Riverside Road runs into Edanola Avenue.

It was a popular place for balls, weddings, conventions and outings -- a combination elegant hostelry and early-day party center.

Its large, three-story frame building had, besides many guest rooms, a first-class bar on the first floor; a dining room on the second floor (famous for its chicken dinners) and a third-floor ballroom reputed to be the most beautiful in the entire Cleveland area.

There was a veranda along the second story, and a "captain's-walk" observation tower on the roof from which one could enjoy an uninterrupted, breathtaking view of the river mouth and Lake Erie.

A landscaped front offered a pond with fountains, ducks and swans. Two buffaloes were kept in a small enclosure for children to see.

There was a picnic grove, too, that extended to the lake, encompassing much of the land of today's Clifton Park section of Lakewood. Owner of the grove was Ezra Nicholson, son of James Nicholson, our community's first permanent Detroit Road settler.

At one time, Nicholson volunteered to give his grove property to the city of Cleveland for a public park, but to no avail. Instead, newspapers of the day derided him, referring to this proposition as "Nicholson's Folly."

Guests arrived at the Cliff House by buggy in summer and sleigh in winter or rode in from Cleveland on the Rocky River Railroad, a six-mile, single-track line that was formed as a joint venture with, and a feeder for, the hotel.

Railroad and hotel had the same owners -- a syndicate composed of Elias Sims, Daniel Rhodes, John H. Sargent, John Spalding, Joseph Barber, George Hartwell, George Washington Jones, Thomas Dixon and the aforementioned Ezra Nicholson.

Sims and Rhodes built the commodious inn. It was formally opened Jan. 28, 1869, and soon was to become, in the words of the Cleveland Leader, "a Mecca for those who seek brief respite from the dust and heat of the city."

First manager was an L. S. Phillips. Then, in the fall of '69, brothers Edward and Julius Fisk took over its operation under a lease.

At the end of the first year, however, Edward Fisk's health failed and brother Julius became sole operator. This change signalized the beginning of scandalous times that would have made ideal grist for the sexsational tabloid mills of today.

On Feb. 16, 1871, one might say that things went from bed to worse. Jenny Droz, a 20-year-old former employee, shot and killed manager Julius Fisk. The murderess told police that over a period of eight months, Julius, who was bachelor, had used every artifice and finally succeeded in seducing her. She further claimed that in the process she caught a "loathesome disease" from him, which incapacitated her for any kind of work.

She said she had applied repeatedly to him for aid, and that time he refused to help her. Finally, on her last visit, she pulled the trigger. She added the if Julius had said just one kind of word to her, she would not have done the deed.

Whatever happened to Jenny Droz afterwards appears to be a fragment lost in the annals of time.

After the murder, Edward Fisk returned to take charge of the Cliff House, but was hit with a damage suit filed by Sims and Rhodes, who contended that Fisk managment had kept the hotel "in an indecent manner and for lewd and illegal purposes."

Edward retaliated with a counter suit, but finally Sims forcibly ejected him from the premises. Subsequently, under various new managements, the hotel's reputation and wide appeal was re-established.

On July, 12, 1871, many spectators gathered at the Cliff House to watch a Professor Jenkins walk across a 900-foot-long rope that had been drawn rightly across Rocky River 150 feet above the water.

In 1874, when room rates at the hotel were $4 to $5 a week, the place was sold to Joseph H. Murch, a Canadian. He changed its name to the Murch House, and improvements were made, including the addition of four fine bowling alleys.

In August of that year, the Buckeye Shooting Club of Cleveland held a pigeon-shooting tournament at the Murch House in which crack shots from miles around participated.

In 1875, a local daily reported that "Rocky River was never so inviting as now." Bowling that season became "quite the fashion," and Murch ran a two-team surrey between Cleveland and his hotel to bring in more customers.

In 1877, the hotel assumed its original name of Cliff House as still other men took over the operation. That year the post office for the township of Rockport was established there with William Hall as postmaster.

The hotel reached the height of its popularity in 1882 when John A. Weber was at its helm. But alas it was during that year that a devastating fire broke out in the Cliff House.

It never was rebuilt. Only the blackened walls were left, unless, of course, one includes the countless enduring memories that remained of glorious times there when Lakewood life's scenario was new, its spirit young, and hope uncharted.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post March 9, 1989. Reprinted with permission.

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