The HANSON-ROBBINS HOUSE located at 21001 Edgecliff Drive in EUCLID was built between 1928 to 1929. The brick, stone, and stucco four-story 4,456 square foot residence was designed by renowned architect Monroe Deane. Constructed by H.W. Brown & Son Co. it is situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie in a manner that provides a lake view from every room in house.
The front elevation of the structure is a combination of French Norman, Chateau, and Tudor Revival styles. Dormers intersect the roofline, with a conical tower topped by a decorative ship weathervane. An H-shaped gutter with “H” engraving, a Hanson family crest, large wooden door, and a steeply pitched roof are signature features of the home. The tower is reminiscent of the silos of farmhouses in the Normandy countryside. Dean also designed a 1927 sister house at 2713 Belvoir Blvd. with a wider turret and which is not tall as the Hanson-Robbins House.
The 23-room house was constructed for physician John Bennett Hanson, his wife, Olive Randall Hanson and their two children. It features six bedrooms, bathrooms, and fireplaces. The fireplace fittings were designed by Keeney. The basement level has a winding staircase to a recreation room, bathroom, entryway, and hidden room. The first floor has a kitchen, butler’s pantry, morning room, breakfast nook with canopy ceiling, cherry paneled library, living room, glass solarium with fountain, formal dining room and an entryway with winding stairs. The second floor includes the master bedroom, sewing room, dressing room, two girl’s bedrooms, a guest bedroom, and housekeeper’s suite. The third floor served as a two servants’ rooms, bathroom, kitchen, a cedar storage room and storage. A gardener, chauffeur, housekeeper, and maids lived at the residence. The fourth floor is a crawl space.
The first-floor entryway has an impressive hand-painted domed ceiling graced by a large Moorish style chandelier, and three stained glass windowpanes representing Columbus’s ships (the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María). The butler’s pantry once held a secret hiding spot for silver. The second-floor master bedroom was styled in purple décor. The oldest daughter’s room featured green décor, a marble fireplace adorned with clamshells, and windowsill friezes depicting Grecian dancing girls. The younger daughter’s bedroom had yellow décor. The home also featured souvenirs from the Hanson family’s travels including a crystal chandelier and wrought iron gate imported from France and stained glass from Italy in the dining room and stained-glass fixtures from Italy. Dr. Hanson collected unique items throughout his travels and the most unusual room in the home was built with one such souvenir It replicated a chestnut timber hull sailing vessel with massive wood timbers and sloping side walls mimicking the interior contour of a ship.. Numerous news articles speculated that Dr. Hanson had found an antique pirate ship while visiting the Caribbean, shipped the vessel back home and added it as an addition to his residence. An article on the home in the April 12, 1930, combined issue of the BYSTANDER and CLEVELAND TOWN TOPICS notes that the recreation room’s “wormy chestnut timbers and portholes give the feeling of being onboard a ship.” The family used the reception room for “gambling parties” and entertaining guests. A 1929 article in the PLAIN DEALER focused on the unusual features of the home and its location on a lot that was once part of the exclusive Utopia Beach housing development. The house’s stone boathouse which had direct access to a private beach, housed the family’s boat and canoe and had men’s and women’s dressing rooms Its sundeck veranda was used as an outdoor entertainment space and included a shuffleboard court. Articles in newspapers and society pages mention that the property was abuzz with social events.
The Hanson’s deeded a small portion of the property in 1934 to teachers, Stanley and Mary Whiteside who used it to build a colonial style home at 21101 Edgecliff Blvd in 1940. An article from an untitled publication titled “Folks at Home” advertised the beaches on Edgecliff Blvd. as a vacation resort for its residents. Mary Whiteside and daughter Jean were photographed sunbathing near the walled garden of the Hanson residence. The landscaping won the first prize in an illuminated garden contest in 1937.
A 1950 Plain Dealer article labeled the Hanson home “The Show Place of Euclid.” The residence was sold for $53,500 in 1951 to Fred and Beverly Robbins. The family made little changes to the structure other than changing the basement hidden room into a bar. In 1963, the owners of Hillwood Manufacturing Company, Chuck and Suan Hill purchased the house. During the Hill’s ownership the property’s gardens were featured in a 1986, North Coast Home and Garden Tour and Flower Show hosted by the Lakeshore Garden Club.
In 1991, the Hills sold the property through a foreclosure sale to the Contorno family. The Contorno’s replaced the floor in the atrium, took out the fountain in the solarium, removed the cement seats in the yard, driveway archway, and third-floor servants’ kitchen. In the 1990s African American Cleveland artist Walt Neil painted mural veins in the stairway entry area. Neils murals were featured in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article. The fifth owners of the home, teachers Anne and Ken Ferlito, purchased the residence in 2003. The Ferlito’s are currently (as of 2025) working with Frost Building Maintenance Inc. to restore the boathouse.
Angelina Bair
The Bystander/Cleveland Town Topics. "The home of Dr. and Mrs. J.B. Hanson". (n.d.).
Williams, J. A History of the City of Euclid. .