Moyenage has an older sister (and you can live there!)
While Moyenage is obviously off the market, its 10,000-square-foot sibling, a Jacobean mansion called the Seven Gable House in Wheaton, Illinois, is up for grabs for $1.75 million. Jarvis Hunt built Seven Gable House for Morse’s daughter; he loved the suburban Illinois estate so much that he wanted Moyenage to draw inspiration from it.
Both estates divert from the architect’s norm, according to Bob Goldborough, a Jarvis Hunt scholar. Hunt generally designed stucco houses, but Moyenage and Seven Gable House are both brick.
A number of influential businesspeople have called Moyenage home
Just one year after the house was finished, Morse passed away from health complications, leaving the estate to his wife, Seville Morse. The widow was also appointed as a partner at her late husband’s iron mining and shipping firm Pickands Mather & Co. “She was a very skilled businessperson,” says Thomas Matowitz, architectural historian and board director of Cleveland Architecture Foundation. Seville helmed the company for more than 20 years. She was also a philanthropist. After her death in 1927, she left Cleveland charities $410,000—almost $8 million in today’s dollars.
Moyenage’s next owner was another industrialist, George Martin, who was eventually appointed president at Sherwin-Williams. When Martin was on the board of the Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians), he was responsible for signing Lou Boudreau, a Hall of Fame shortstop.
This manse is subject to the rumor mill
While locals and news reports alike say that the home’s third-floor ballroom served as a speakeasy during Prohibition, Matowitz casts doubt upon this theory. Prohibition was in place between 1920 to 1933, which aligns with Seville Morse’s and George Martin’s residencies—unlikely candidates for bootlegging, per the historian. “I doubt [Seville] was running a liquor establishment, I find that very far-fetched,” he says.
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