330 Homes Spring 2021

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GEM O N DISPLAY

Akron architects restored a crown jewel century-old mansion to its former glory.

I n 1928, the Byron R. Barder mansion on Market Street was written up in a local publication as “one

other firm architects, embarked on decades of work to restore the mansion to the crown jewel it was during the Progressive Era. The 13,500-square-foot estate, which includes a six-bed, four-bath main house, a carriage house and a garage, was built in 1919 on 1.19 acres for Barder, president and general manager of Biggs Boiler Works Co., and his family. It’s one of a few remaining examples of the presti gious Harpster & Bliss architecture firm's work, in addition to Greystone in downtown Akron. They got the home listed on the National

Register of Historic Places in 1987. “In its park-like setting, the Barder house remains an important showplace of its West Market Street neighborhood,” attested late historian James Pahlau on the application. Charles Seiberling, co-founder of the Goodyear Rubber & Tire Co., lived next door in a mansion known as Tri Acres that’s listed with the Department of the Interior as a his torical landmark. “The factories were on the

of Akron’s finest private homes.”

When architects Chas Schreckenberger and Rob Habel arrived there in 1987 after their employer, Braun & Steidl Architects, bought it, the Georgian Revival’s cream brick exterior was shrouded — almost buried — by overgrown trees and tangled vines. “You couldn’t see the house from the street,” Habel recalls. “We helped pull the vines off.” The two, along with

East Side. The West Side generally had more wealth,” says Schreckenberger.

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