Mariemont

Today's visitor to Mariemont, Ohio, encounters what appears to be a community from another place and time, perhaps a country village in England's Cotswold region. Tree-lined streets pass through neighborhoods lined with Tudor- and Georgian-style buildings. A stone church with a roof that dates from 1300 abuts an early settlement graveyard. This remarkable village is the masterpiece of the eminent town planner John Nolen (1869-1937) and the vision of philanthropist Mary M. Emery (1844-1927). Located near Cincinnati, Mariemont was designed as a self-sufficient town, its inspiration derived from the English Garden City and concepts developed in the early twentieth century. In 2007, Mariemont earned National Historic Landmark status from the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior. Today, it serves as a "National Exemplar" for twenty-first-century developers, including those of the New Urbanist movement. Mariemont: A Pictorial History of a Model Town presents both archival photographs that trace the creation, construction, and growth of the town and contemporary views by noted Cincinnati photographer Robert Flischel. Photographs from the rich collection of the Mariemont Preservation Foundation, including rare images made of the area in the 1870s-80s and by John Nolen and Nancy Ford Cones in the 1920s, mark this important experiment in architecture and urban design.