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Area: square miles in Cuyahoga County
Population: 800
Location: 15 miles southeast
of Cleveland Education:
Orange City Schools Community
Link:
The Village of Hunting Valley
General Characteristics: Hunting Valley is rich
in nature, open spaces lined with country fences and
and large estates. It has been populated by many of
Cleveland’s prominent families, who have developed
country estates in this picturesque landscape. One
can find many runners and cyclists along the Chagrin
River Road which runs next to the Chagrin River and
through the center of Hunting Valley North to South.
Among the beautiful estates one will find hiking
trails, bridal trails, polo fields which suggest
life in a more peaceful unspoiled past.
Information: Village Officers, 38251
Fairmount Blvd.
Hunting Valley, OH 440-247-6106
Hunting Valley History: Hunting Valley, originally
part of Orange Twp., incorporated as a village in
1924. It is an 11 sq. mi. residential village of
private estates, farm acreage, and large suburban
homes, located approx. 15 miles southeast of
downtown Cleveland. It lies on the Chagrin River,
bordered on the north by Gates Mills, on the south
by Moreland Hills, on the east by Geauga County, and
on the west by Woodmere and Pepper Pike.
The township was settled in 1815 and established in
1820. Some of the first families laid out their
farms in the 1820s in the area where the Chagrin
River and Fairmount Blvd. now intersect. During the
19th century, Orange was a thriving farming and
dairy community. At the beginning of this century,
Cleveland industrialists began to purchase property
in this area.
Jeptha Homer Wade II bought 455 acres on Fairmount
Rd. and called it Valley Ridge Farm. In 1913 Andrew
Squire developed a working farm and a horticultural
and landscape gardening center, where Western
Reserve University (later Case Western Reserve
University) students studied the arboretum and the
95-acre pharmaceutical garden. In 1934 Squire
bequeathed the estate, Squire Valleevue Farm, to WRU.
In 1940 the population was approx. 336. In the
1920s, Oris and Mantis Van Swiringen bought a large
tract east of SOM Center Rd. for their country home,
called Daisy Hill. After their deaths, the property
was sold and divided into more than 60 private
estates.
Many residents of the close-knit village are
descendants of families that originally lived on
Euclid Ave., later in Wade Park, then Bratenahl. A
greenhouse, located at Daisy Hill, was the only
commercial enterprise in the village in 1986. In
1970 University School established a 175-acre campus
in Hunting Valley. The village, governed by an
elected mayor and council, is part of the Orange
Local School District. The population was 477 in
1950, rose to 600 in 1960 and to 780 in 1992. |
