BEAULIEU (also known as the Tremaine-Gallagher House) is a private residence located at 3001 Fairmount Blvd. CLEVELAND HEIGHTS. built for NATIONAL ELECTRIC LAMP CO. organizer Henry A. Tremaine and wife Ethel Crouch Tremaine. It was constructed in the east Fairmount Development of the Shaker Heights Improvement Co. between 1912 and 1914.
For two years the Tremaine family lived in the two-story carriage house (built at the cost of $100,000) until the completion of the main house. It and the two-story 8,544 square foot two-story home were designed by FREDERIC WILLIAM STRIEBINGER in the Beaux-style. Striebinger featured the Henry Tremaine residence and the Harry Coulby Residence “Coulallenby” in Wickliffe in his 1914 architectural portfolio Illustrations of Work Designed by Frederick William Striebinger Architect.
Beaulieu may have been based on Stanford White’s Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island.. The interior was decorated by RORIMER BROOKS. The foundation is concrete with walls constructed of masonry with stucco and white glazed terracotta facing. A parapet surrounds the entire flat roof. The main façade is symmetrical with projecting pavilions connected by a loggia with three arched openings. The chimneys are tile and firebrick. All windows and doors are framed with white glazed terra cotta tiles. There is Chinese latticework on the carriage house and servant’s entry and residential quarters for the gardener and chauffeur. Beaulieu was highlighted in the CLEVELAND TOWN TOPICS publication, Beautiful Homes of Cleveland.
Six years after the house was finished the property and its furnishings were sold to the General Manager of the M.A. HANNA MINING CO., Michael Gallagher. President Calvin Coolidge stayed at the house as a guest of Mr. Gallagher while he was the sitting president of the United States. General John Pershing, a friend of the Gallagher family, commissioned an artist to copy the French murals in the style of Hubert Robert in the dining room for use in his own home. The Chippendale dining room chairs had paintings on their backs with motifs that were similar to dining room murals. The room was it by a large Tiffany leaded glass elliptical rheostat-controlled lighting fixture it its ceiling.. Gallagher, his wife Sarah, and daughter Helen Woods, lived in the home until 1959 when it was sold to North American Coal Co. Executive William Barringer. He oversaw the remodeling of the kitchen and pantry in 1959 and disposed of a number of the original furnishings.
One year the property was sold to Ridley Watts Jr. of the American Packaging Corporation and his wife, Gertrude (“Skip”) Watts. From 1960 to 1974 the Watts and eight children resided at Beaulieu. A soda foundation was installed in the kitchen, the floor tile of which was then covered by linoleum.. The Watts who were founders of the Fairmount Jazz Festival (See: JAZZ) hosted famous jazz musicians including Count Basie, Eddie Condon, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton and others who played at the house.
In 1974 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY Clinic Instructor Dr. Jalal Afnan and wife Maureen purchased the house, living there until 1992. They undertook further modifications of the interior, most particularly in the kitchen and former servants’ quarters.
The property changed hands again when Daniel and Kellie Gooding purchased it in 1992, residing there until 1995. Two air conditioner units were installed in the carriage house in 1993. Gooding remodeled the coach house and rented it to tenants
It was purchased by Ted and Sally Smith (who, as of 2025 are the current owners). They have restored the home and made some changes. The kitchen was remodeled, restoring the original pantry and the cooking kitchen. The 1912 refrigerator was updated with a new mechanism and plaster detailing by Fischer and Jirouch were added in the kitchen area.
Today the property retains a good deal of its original character. The rooms include an Egyptian sleeping porch on the second floor predating the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, an Adamesque dining room, and Scottish Stuart drawing room. The main staircase and foyer are Roman in style. The staircase has two runs and a domed skylight. A large Palladian window is at the landing. The main floor is wooden parquet. Marble fireplace mantels grace the dining room, drawing room, breakfast room, east room and library. The drawing room walls have oak wainscoting with damask on the upper portions. The fireplace wall boasts Grinling Gibbons style fruit and flower plaster festoons created by FISCHER AND JIROUCH.
The exterior is highlighted by two pairs of impressive limestone gateposts at the entrances from Fairmount Boulevard and Stratford Rd. The front of the two-acre property faces Fairmount Boulevard. A stone terrace, added in 1998, flanks an original pair of stone sphinxes. The home retains a greenhouse (the current one was constructed in 2008. During the Watts’ ownership the reflecting pool in the garden was deepened into a swimming pool but did not alter the garden design. The Smiths added an herb garden, English Shakespeare Garden, and a formal French rose garden. Trees were cleared and a fountain was added to the front of the home to take the place of a large fountain behind the pool which the Watts’s had changed into a stage. A traditional Chinese Scholar’s Garden was added behind the carriage house as a reflection of the Chinese lattice work on that structure.
The home and property have often been publicized in the media. The exterior of the home was photographed for a Peerless Motorcar advertisement in the 1920s (Tremaine was part-owner of the Peerless Automobile Company); three movies were filmed on the grounds (See: CLEVELAND ON FILM) Snow White (1916), Christmas at Maxwell’s (2006) and Lost and Found in Cleveland (2023).
Its notability has gone well beyond the Cleveland area. The Library of Congress and the Museum of the City of New York hold photographs that document its interior spaces. The property is a Cleveland Heights Landmark; an Ohio Historical Site; and listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The residence is featured in Lester Walker’s American Homes: The Landmark Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture and RICHARD CAMPEN'S Ohio-An Architectural Portrait as an important example of Beaux-Arts and Renaissance Revival architecture in the United States. Architecture writer, Reed McAlester has compares Beaulieu to the grand eclectic “cottages” of Newport Rhode, Island. Overall, it is representative of the lifestyle of the wealthy in the late Gilded Age and early twentieth century.
Angelina Bair & Tom Matowitz
Campen, Richard. Ohio-An Architectural Portrait. (1973).
Cleveland Heights Historical Society. The Tremaine-Gallagher House -3001 Fairmount Boulevard. (2023).
Cleveland Public Library. Frederick William Striebinger Architect Archive. (n.d.).
Cleveland Town Topics. Beautiful Homes of Cleveland. (1917)
Library of Congress. Tremaine-Gallagher House, 3001 Fairmount Boulevard, Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County, OH Photos from Survey HABS OH-2131. (n.d.).
Museum of the City of New York. Residence of H.A. Tremaine, Cleveland Ohio Photos. (n.d.).
Walker, Lester. American Homes: The Landmark Illustrated Encyclopedia of Domestic Architecture. (2015).
Wren, Patricia. Cleveland.com: "Carriage houses provide unique rental spaces." (2010).