page_title: Feargus B. Squire
section_title: Homes
hierarchical_section_title: Feargus B. Squire / Retirement / Homes
caption_attribution_description: English: Squire's Castle
context_page_description: Feargus O'Conner Bowden Squire, often referred to as F. B. Squire, was an executive with the Standard Oil Company and former mayor of Wickliffe, Ohio. He is well known in the petroleum industry for introducing a number of innovations, such as the tanker truck and door-to-door delivery of refined oil, and for financing a breakthrough in the mining of sulfur.
context_section_description: Squire's earliest known residence was at 1729 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.  This was his primary residence, and Euclid Avenue was known as "Millionaire's Row" due to the large number of mansions built there by wealthy men. In 1905, Squire moved to 7809 Euclid Avenue. This home was built in 1875 by Liberty E. Holden, a real estate investor and owner of The Plain Dealer newspaper.
  About 1890, Squire purchased 525 acres (2.12 km²) of forest land near what is now Willoughby Hills, Ohio, east of Cleveland. He called it River Farm Estate, and planned to turn it into an English country estate complete with manor house. About 1895, Squire began construction on a gatekeeper's house in the Romanesque Revival style. The structure, which was exceedingly rustic (lacking running water, electricity, natural gas, or sewer) was completed about 1897. Squire abandoned plans for a manor house after encountering difficulty obtaining building materials and labor. Squire and his daughter used the gatekeeper's house as an occasional weekend country home (even spending most of the summer of 1903 there). But Squire's wife disliked the house, and Squire rarely visited it after 1908. He sold the estate and gatekeeper's house to developers in 1922. After the developers went bankrupt, the estate was seized by a local bank. The Cleveland Park Board (precursor to Cleveland Metroparks) purchased most of the land from the bank in 1925. The park board began calling the structure "Squire's Castle". Heavily vandalized over the years, the structure has been somewhat restored and is open to the public.
  About 1900 or 1901, Squire began construction on a second country home, Cobblestone Garth, in Wickliffe, Ohio. It was not unusual for wealthy men to own more than one country home at the time, but Cobblestone Garth was quite different from the unbuilt River Farm Estate: Built in the then-current Victorian architectural style, it was built primarily of wood, was much larger, and had most modern conveniences. Cobblestone Garth was largely complete by 1902, and featured in the book The Country Estates of Cleveland Men in 1903. After the Squires' return to the United States in late 1910, they moved permanently to Cobblestone Garth from Euclid Avenue. Although Cobblestone Garth itself was torn down at a later date, the rubble masonry border wall, gatehouse, and a distinctive lighthouse-like structure remained intact into the 21st century. It is located at 28787 Ridge Road in Wickliffe.
caption: "Squire's Castle", built about 1897 by Feargus B. Squire.
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