A Man and His Castle

Deep in a small valley off of River Road in the Cleveland Metroparks North Chagrin Reservation in Willoughby Hills, Ohio lies the nearly 120-year-old Squire’s Castle. With massive stonewalls topped off with ragged battlements, an imposing watchtower, narrow loophole windows for archers to shoot through, and large archways, the romantic, medieval-looking stone structure has enchanted visitors imaginations for decades. Built in the 1890s by Cleveland Standard Oil executive and entrepreneur Feargus B. Squire, the castle was intended to be the gatehouse of a larger estate called “River Farm Estate,” but Squire never finished the project.

Squire was a successful American oil pioneer and Standard Oil executive. Born in southwest England in 1850, he came to America at age 10 and settled in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Squire left school at age 15, spent a short time at a local paper mill, then left to work at one of the largest oil refineries in the Cleveland area, eventually working his way up to bookkeeper.

In 1872, Squire and fellow bookkeeper John Teagle formed Squire & Teagle, which bought and sold petroleum products. Two years later, Squire sold his part of the business and used the proceeds to form Newman, Squire & Company where he developed a horse-drawn tanker and became the first company in American history to deliver “refined” petroleum door-to-door to retail customers.

In 1876, Standard Oil bought out Newman, Squire & Co and Squire joined Standard Oil as a co-manager with Frank Rockefeller, the brother of John D. Rockefeller, eventually rising to vice president in 1881. As Squire’s wealth grew, he expanded his business interests to include soda ash and salt production, newspaper publishing, surety bonds, telegraph and telephone businesses, and tire and rubber companies.

Enchanted by the charm of the Chagrin River Valley, Squire purchased 525 acres of Western Reserve forest land in the valley about 1890 near what is now the city of Willoughby Hills, Ohio, on the far north east side of Cleveland. There, Squire planned to build a grand English country estate, naming it “River Farm Estate.” Squire commissioned a New York architect and planned two English/German baronial-style structures: a large country manor house to be built behind a smaller gatehouse. Around 1895, squire started construction on the gatehouse, completing it around 1897. The house was remarkably rustic in design and without any running water, utilities, or sewer. However, Squire abandoned construction of the large manor house after encountering difficulty obtaining building materials and craftsman.

Squire and his daughter, Irma, often frequented the gatekeeper house as a weekend country home, spending much of the summer of 1903 there. But Squire's wife, Louisa, preferred city living, and Squire rarely visited the estate after 1909 when he retired from Standard Oil. Squire and his wife spent the next two years traveling throughout Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. After returning to the United States, Squire moved permanently into Cobblestone Garth, a large Victorian-style country mansion with most modern conveniences. He had built the mansion in Wickliffe, Ohio in 1902.

Squire sold the River Farm Estate to developers in 1922, and the Cleveland Metroparks acquired it in 1925, which was the beginning of the North Chagrin Reservation. Coincidently, that same year Squire was elected to one term as Mayor of Wickliffe.

Squire’s wife, Louisa, died of pneumonia in 1927 at Cobblestone Garth, and Squire died at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 1932. Squire, his wife, daughter, and daughter’s husband are buried at Knollwood Cemetery mausoleum in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.

Feargus B. Squire’s gatehouse was named Squire's Castle only after the Cleveland Metroparks took over the property in 1925. Today, only the massive outside walls of Squire’s medieval-looking stone castle remain. The castle’s thick walls