Monday, July 24, 2017

Sherwood Allotment Ad – July 27, 1957

Anyone growing up on the west side of Lorain in the 1960s has probably heard of Sherwood Allotment.

Well, above is an ad promoting it that ran in the Lorain Journal on July 27, 1957 – 60 years ago this month. It provides a nice description of a model home built by Molnar-Riley Construction for that development. Features of the home included built-in Tappan oven and range, a black top driveway (don’t see too many of those these days), oak flooring throughout, Formica counter tops and a cement block basement.

It’s interesting that according to the ad, one of the benefits of living in Sherwood Allotment was its location “only minutes from Downtown.” Who knew that 60 years later, the location would be even better, being minutes away from the retail development on Oak Point?

Anyway, I've mentioned before that the school bus carrying the Sherwood Allotment kids drove right by our house on E. Skyline Drive heading west towards Leavitt Road. But we lived just inside the boundary that would have put us on that particular bus, so we walked to Masson School. We probably needed the exercise anyway.

Being the nosy type, I drove over to Sherwood Allotment in June on a Saturday afternoon to see if I could find the model home featured in the ad. Sure enough, it was just a few houses to the east of Sherwood Drive, and still looked great.

Interestingly, the Lorain County Auditor website says the house (which recently was sold and still had the FOR SALE sign out front) was built in 1959. 
But readers of this blog know better (heh-heh).

6 comments:

  1. I remember the big signs on the 21st St. split as you entered the allotment. A friend on my Mom's who we frequented bought one on N Hogan Dr. There was a ravine behind it. Hope you had a great vacation. Rae

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  2. Hey Dan,
    Do you know of any reason why the map in the ad would have north at the bottom? It took me awhile to figure out exactly where this subdivision was!
    Keep up the good work.

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  3. Strange how the sidewalks are in the middle of the yard in the "now" photo . If you look on Google Maps, about 10 houses to the east the walks take an "S" curve and end up in the normal position.

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  4. Great comments, everyone! As for the map's unusual layout, I guess whoever did the art thought that it would make it easier to navigate, assuming that most of the people interested in seeing the house would come from the north. It's funny that you noticed the sidewalks, Dennis – that is a mighty generous tree lawn! And thanks, Rae – all vacations are good even though I stayed in the area.

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  5. Interestingly, I checked Historic Aerials and there weren't any sidewalks at all in 1969, perhaps because it was somewhat rural (and kids were taking the bus anyway).

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  6. I remember the side walk controversy. We moved into that neighborhood in the early 70's (71 or 72) and they had no sidewalks at all, the city came through and made the home owners install sidewalks because of Meister Road school - being built. Meister Road school is now leveled and the sidewalks are still there, I remember how upset my Dad was, along with others that fought the sidewalks with the city.

    They jogged around like that I think because some folks installed them before the city forced everyone too. Still no sidewalks on the north side of Meister from the old school site to 58. Wonder why that was okay???

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