In the 35 years that Sylvia Korey has lived at 3450 Roundwood Manor, the former country home of the Van Sweringen brothers, there have been too many memorable events to fully recount.
On the eight acres Roundwood stands on in Hunting Valley’s Daisy Hill neighborhood, Korey’s hosted fundraisers for the Cleveland Ballet and for the Hathaway Brown School where her daughters went. She’s had 50-person dinners, pool parties, tennis matches.
“I’ve had historians, architects, developers, professors, more historians, more architects,” Korey said. “I’ve hosted talks with sold-out crowds of 120 people.”
It’s been on and off the market before, but Korey had in recent years embarked on a campaign to save it from demolition by turning the mansion into condos. On Sunday, for the first time since that campaign, the house hit the market. Chestnut Hill Realty is currently listing Roundwood for $4.5 million, which Korey said is $100,000 above its lowest listing price. In the past, its highest asking price was nearly $7 million.
The house itself, which totals 55,000 square feet, is a gem of the Millionaire’s Row era of Cleveland, when the opulence of Euclid Ave. fed into the dream of the countryside. Finding Hunting Valley fit for such a spot, Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen built Roundwood in 1927 under the guidance of architect Philip Small, a lauded Cleveland-based builder in the Colonial-Revival tradition. (It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019)
Roundwood’s size and splendor, as Korey has admitted, may be exactly why it’s been tough to sell in the past decade or so. Maintaining 14 bedrooms, 16 baths and nine fireplaces, along with a tennis court and indoor pool, could seem exhausting to couples willing to spend a million more for a more compact property.
In 2015, Korey petitioned her homeowner’s association to gauge the feasibility of turning her home into condos. Trustees and the Hunting Valley Planning and Zoning Commission rejected her proposal: Each condo, they said, citing a 1938 ordinance, would not have enough land under it.
A fact that still baffles Korey to this day. The former garages and chauffeur structure across the street have operated as five rental apartments since 1999, even though they don’t have the 5-acre requirement as the manor supposedly needs. “I still don’t get it,” Korey said. “It’s just frustrating.”
With no safe future for Roundwood, Korey figured Roundwood might be demolished.
“That’s the thing about these old structures. They cannot be duplicated. It’s done. Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” she told Scene. “To many people, to the nearly 800 that walked through these front doors, they are all in awe and say how something like this is the masterpiece can never be duplicated today.”
Korey, an empty nester who replaces all the batteries in the smoke detectors herself, said she feels positive that Chestnut Hill will nab the right caretaker this time around.
“I’m confident that they will find the right buyer who will love a historic home,” she said, “and who will love this and take care of it, and enjoy it as much as we have.”
