Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1978. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Mountain House is a historic Gothic Revival house in western Chillicothe, Ohio, United States. It was built by German immigrant Oscar Janssen in 1852, sitting atop a bluff above the Scioto River and the rest of the city of Chillicothe; its location and architectural style were intended to resemble that of castles overlooking the Rhine in his homeland.”
Wikipedia article Mountain House (Chillicothe, Ohio), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 22 National Register listings in Ross County · listed in 1978 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.78002181- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
27 since 2002
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 27 fires within 5 miles of Mountain House between
2002 and 2020, burning about 59 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
5
Recreation and ceremony
4
Power generation/transmission/distribution
2
Arson/incendiarism
1
Smoking
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,796 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Mountain House between 1874 and
1975: 1,301 Animalia, 397 Fungi, 86 Plantae, 8 Protozoa, 3 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. C. Kinsey, A. C. Lincoln, A. Cronquist and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
4 workings within 5 miles of Mountain House: 3 past producers, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Chillicothe, the town this property stands in, in 92 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 56 thunderstorm wind, 24 hail, 6 flood, 3 lightning.
The reports record 1 death and 6 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Problems with high water occurred across the county. A roof of a gas station on the west side of Chillicothe collapsed under the weight of the heavy rain.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,719 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Mountain House remains virtually unaltered today and is original CONDITION UNEXPOSED in the living room were his creation, as were the stained glass windows windows have casements with elaborate Gothic mullions and label molds. earliest and best examples of Gothic Revival style, with Romanesque and its originality. Gothic detail in the country. at Adena for twenty-five years has enabled him to maintain the house is eighth generation printer in the Hunter family and current above the main block forming parapets that hide the shed roof.Smooth accented with corbelling are on both the first and second stories.The cornice has widely spaced brackets. stone removed,once lined the top of the parapets.
by two square towers flanking either side and rising about four feet Three windows on the second floor, front facade, have casements and The foundation is constructed as a wine cellar and has an entrance Mountain House is a 2-story brick stretcher bond structure ona around the doors and windows in the lower portion of the house were made located under an iron railed stone terrace on the side)of _FAIR -GOOD LRUINS A stone water by him, also. owner of the house from 1919 to 1963 made the Adam style mantel in the The literally grew with Dard Hunter's talents. Dard Hunter, one and a half story gabled wing projects from the rear.
The house The molding table extends around the main block.Brick pilasters and belt courses Three wooden doors set in Gothic-arched openings provide for The front facade is dominated The bookcases lining the walls and all interior woodwork music room to which he added the l7th century Dutch tiles. ingress and egress to the wine cellar. AREAS OF
Statement of significance
was greatly enhanced by the talents of Dard Hunter, world famous authority on papermaking and designer, who made the house the home of the Mountain Oscar Janssen, a German immigrant, it is constructed in a unique setting Dard Hunter, world fanous authority on hand made paper and its he published a quarto-size book entitled Old Papermaking; in 1925, came 1600-1699 1852 residence. ART EDUCATION THEATER LAW AGRICULTURE ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC BUILDER/ARCHITECT COMMUNICATIONS SIGNIFICANCE RELIGION EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT in Mountain House.
INDUSTRY XLITERATURE _POLITICS/GOVERNMENT His travels enabled him to assemble an amazing collection of paper- _CONSERVATION making tools and equipment from all parts of the world which he used _PHILOSOPHY Hubbard's Roycroft Shop, East Aurora, New York, published many limited _ENGINEERING _TRANSPORTATION _PREHISTORIC Mountain House was used as a beer garden and winery with vineyards terraced down the steep hillside above which the house sets. Mountain House is an excellent example of Gothic Revival style _SCIENCE from produced the folio book of Primitive Papermaking,1927. of Paper Chemistry in center of the paper House Press for many years.
-1400-1499 The Literature of Papermaking-1390-l800 in folio;and after returning -1500-1599 PERIOD Built in l852 as a representation of a castle on the Rhine by -1700-1799 - MILITARY _COMMERCE -ECONOMICS _1900- _MUSIC -COMMUNITY PLANNING pictured in an 1856 lithograph from Cincinnati, and remains the same that Mountain House was used as a girls' school and then as a private Mountain House Press. Hunter, formerly the art director for Elbert Institute of Technology in 1938 and in 1954 was moved to The Institute INVENTION ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC The Dard Hunter Paper Museum was established at the Massachusetts research and work performed by Dard Hunter at his Mountain House Press.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78002181, 14 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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