A Grandin Place Carriage House That’s Full of History

The striking March family home is on the market for the first time in a generation.
2504

2680 Grandin Place, Hyde Park
$1.297 million

Photograph by Chris Far, The First Showing, LLC

You can’t tour this hilltop home without learning a good bit about the March family. Maybe that’s because nearly every wall is currently draped with large-scale modern art tapestries woven by Maud Rydin March, the Sweden-born matriarch of the family and an extraordinary artist whose works have been exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Maybe it’s because the home is filled with family furniture, photos, and antiques and, for all its beauty, doesn’t seem like a place that has been staged for resale. But it’s mostly because the real estate agent, Perrin March IV, grew up here. “This was my room,” he says, as we climb to the top floor of the converted carriage house. The room is scaled like a bachelor apartment with three distinct living spaces and a fireplace; it will be the ideal master suite for a future buyer. (The home was temporarily taken off the market due to COVID-19, but will be placed back on the market in the coming weeks.)

Photograph by Chris Far, The First Showing, LLC

Photograph by Chris Far, The First Showing, LLC

When you see the room where March’s parents slept, though, you’ll understand their preference: The suite features a balcony overlooking Mt. Lookout and Columbia-Tusculum. In the 1950s the original owner converted the building into a more than 5,000-square-foot single-family home with four bedrooms, and added some Space Age amenities like intercoms and a built-in under-the-counter coffee maker (sadly, neither is still operable).

The kitchen and the bathrooms are trapped in mid-century amber, and the rest of the home feels like classic early-20th century Hyde Park. But its history is unique; you will never meet its equal. Perrin March III, an engineer who ran the machine tool manufacturing company Cincinnati, Inc., for 70 years, loved pointing out the reminders of the building’s life as a former stable, like the timber frame ceiling in the grand family room. “Everybody loved being here,” March remembers, and he admits that a challenge with showing the home is helping prospective buyers imagine how they could make the place—still so full of his vibrant family—their own. But that might just be the secret to success with this listing: The buyer for this home will surely do so because it is steeped in history, and one of a kind.

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