Reviving The Mariemont Concourse

By Matt Ayer

An iconic feature of the Village of Mariemont is its Concourse, located on Miami Bluff at the end of Center Street. The concrete structure offers a dramatic vista of the Little Miami River Valley. It is the site of countless Mariemont High School homecoming and prom pictures over the decades. Occasionally the venue is rented from the Village for an outdoor wedding. It’s a great spot to meet a friend, stop for a quick lunch, or pass through on your daily walk. Wisteria vines come to life in the spring with their lavender, fragrant, hanging blossoms followed by new tendrils branching across the lattice work of the wooden pergola.

John Nolen’s town plan included the Concourse as a prominent, distinctive feature. His principal associate at the time, Philip W. Wheeler, executed a preliminary sketch for the wall and its pergola in the Winter of 1923. He laid out an approximately 400-foot long, symmetrical arc of a circle, with benches integrated into a stone wall with pillars to support a wooden pergola. Engineering details included a concrete foundation 33 feet high to provide support for the stonework into the deep ravine. Just as with the church and other projects, the Mariemont Company sourced limestone from a hillside quarry near the base of Indian Hill Road to build the walls and pillars.

The pergola consists of two parallel cedar beams fixed from column to column, crossed above by rafters featuring a distinctive scallop for decorative detail. A lattice pattern then crosses atop the rafters to support the vines.

In a letter to Nolen in August 1924, Charles Livingood expressed his excitement for the Concourse: “This is to be one of the show places in the United States, if I am a judge. I had no idea myself how beautiful the Little Miami Valley is in mid-Summer. This Concourse will be unique – it will be the center of the greatest gatherings and towards evening will be a delightful spot for the inhabitants to congregate, for it has this great advantage – the sun does not set in the eyes of the visitor.”

That same month, he provided Nolen instructions for the Concourse, including: “I want this terrain to be largely a smooth lawn (with some planting of course) upon which tired men and women, after their day of work can lie full length… and look out over the broad peaceful valley.”

In June 1925 Nolen sent Mariemont’s resident Landscape Architect, J.F. Whitney, a suggested planting plan for the pergola. He envisioned an assortment of vines, following a sequence of bloom colors, from cold colors at the ends, to warm colors at the center. He suggested wisteria at each end, transitioning to other flowering vines including clematis, climbing hydrangea, trumpet vines and climbing roses.

In 1992 the Mariemont Preservation Foundation completed a significant $104,000 cont'd on next page

($410,00 in today’s dollars) rehabilitation of the Concourse, approximately half of which involved repairs to the concrete wall. At that time, it appears that the vines were all wisteria, some of which were replaced. The lawn area was dotted with 11 existing and new trees.

As we celebrate our Centennial this year, it is time once again time to perform rehabilitation work on the Concourse. The wooden pergola needs immediate replacement, as many of the beams and rafters have deteriorated from rot and insects. The Village plans to replace the westernmost three small sections (out of approximately 40) this fall as a pilot project for purposes of planning the remaining work for 2024. This renovation will require cutting back all the wisteria to the ground (rejuvenation pruning).

Concourse (from previous page)

It may be a season or two before we again see blooms trailing from the trelliswork.

Meanwhile, this fall our Parks Advisory Board will be directing some minor changes to plantings, by removing some overgrown and out-of-place evergreens with softer and more appropriate shrubs and perennials. The Village will be removing shrubs and trees on the hillside that presently block the vista envisioned by Livingood.

As we embark on this next Concourse renovation, as a community we have some decisions to make.

Should we vary the types of vines on the pergola as suggested by Nolen, or should we simply rejuvenate the existing Japanese wisteria monoculture?

Should we restore Livingood’s concept of an open lawn in the center of the Concourse, or should we maintain the current state that looks more like an arboretum?

The Parks Advisory Board (PAB) will be making its recommendations to the Mayor and Village Council’s Health & Recreation Committee. To express your own viewpoint, please direct suggestions by emailing info@mariemont.org.