STRATEGIC PARTNERS
Dec. 17, 1998 commemorates the 95th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight of a 'heavier-than-air flying machine'at Kitty Hawk, NC. Surprisingly, the brothers who revolutionized flight share a common piece of history with NCR, the high flyer of the ATM industry. by Donna Russell, contributing writer
March 20, 2003
What do ATM manufacturer NCR and the Wright Brothers, inventors of the world's first airplane, have in common?
For starters, they share the same hometown: Dayton, Ohio.
They've also shared a home: Hawthorn Hill, a brick, colonial-style mansion perched atop a 35-foot hill in the city of Oakwood, just south of Dayton.
Built in 1914 to Orville Wright's exacting specifications, Hawthorn Hill served as the bachelor inventor's home for 34 years. At various times, it was also home to Orville's sister, Katharine, and his father, Bishop Milton Wright. Brother Wilbur, however, never lived there. He died of typhoid fever on May 30, 1912 before construction on the home began.
NCR archivist Bill West explains how NCR came to own Hawthorn Hill. "When Orville passed away in 1948, the house was put up for sale. The chairman of NCR at that time lived close to the property and walked past it every day. When it didn't sell, he eventually decided to buy it."
The price paid: $75,000 -- a considerable sum in 1949, but a small price to pay for a piece of America's history.
History of the home
The Wright brothers purchased the land for Hawthorn Hill in February 1912. They liked the majestic hawthorn trees that shaded the property as well as the hill, which provided a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.
Dayton architectural firm Schenk and Williams designed the 15-room house, although Orville and his sister provided plenty of ideas. According to a 1965 article about the home written by Graham Justus of NCR, the idea for the design came from a trip Orville and Wilbur made to Ft. Meyer, Va., for tests of their airplane.
Ivonette Miller, the Wrights' niece, told Justus, "They saw the colonial-style houses in the south with their big columns in front and decided then that this was to be the style of their new home in Dayton."
NCR hired interior designers W. and J. Sloan from New York City to redecorate Hawthorn Hill after they purchased it. West notes that the home has been through several remodelings, most recently in the late 1980s when some of its original features were brought back.
The house stands empty today, coming to life only when NCR hosts overnight guests or when receptions and dinners are held there.
The only room left untouched is Orville Wright's library. His reading glasses sit on a small table beside his chair. The book he was reading before he died sits open in a special holder he devised himself from a dictionary rack. The walls are lined with his favorite reading materials, from Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington and Abraham Lincoln to technical journals. And the clock on top of the bookshelves is stopped at the exact time he died.
Another room that offers an intimate look at how the bachelor inventor lived is his upstairs bath. Built to Orville's design, a gargantuan white tile shower is lined with pipes that spray from many different directions at the same time. He used a weather beaten tarpaulin that originally covered the brothers' first plane as a shower curtain.
Also in the bathroom are built-in cabinets with a wooden rack Orville devised for suspending bottles of hand lotion, mouthwash and shaving lotion. He concocted his own shaving lotion out of a special combination of bay rum, rosewater and other ingredients.
Orville's hand can be seen in other areas of his home, including:
• A central, compressed-air vacuum system the inventor had built into the house to make cleaning easier for his housekeeper, who, according to Ivonette Miller, found it too cumbersome and never used it
• A special wiring system hooked up to the furnace which allowed him to regulate the heat by pulling on a wire that came through the living room floor
• A specially-constructed niche in the reception room for a sculpture presented to the brothers in 1908 by the Aero Club of Sarthe, France
Orville did his own plumbing and electrical repair work at Hawthorn Hill. In fact, he suffered a heart attack while running up and downstairs repairing the doorbell.
Famous visitors
Many notable people have visited Hawthorn Hill, during Orville's lifetime and since its purchase by NCR.
Some of Orville's famous guests included Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, W. E. Scripps, Henry and Edsel Ford, arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Charles Lindbergh. In fact, "Lucky Lindy" made two public appearances from Hawthorn Hill's south balcony just after he returned from his record-setting flight across the Atlantic to France.
Although no U.S. president has stayed overnight in the home, Franklin D. Roosevelt dropped in when he came to Dayton during World War II for a visit to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The inventor and the president rode in a parade and visited the base together. When the Secret Service drove Orville home, he asked to be dropped off a few blocks away, saying he would walk the rest of the way - something he was teased about for years. Ivonette Miller recalled, "We told him he went to a parade with the President and then walked home."
Since NCR has owned Hawthorn Hill, other notables who have visited include General Omar Bradley, King Constantine of Greece, Bob Hope, John Glenn, James Stewart, Mary Pickford and Lucy Johnson. A luncheon was held at the home to honor astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
Unfortunately, the house isn't open to the public. West explains, "At one time, NCR had thoughts of opening it up and making it part of the aviation national park, but because it's in a residential neighborhood, people were worried about traffic."
Other Wright Brothers' artifacts may be seen at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, including:
• A reproduction of the Wright Cycle Company Shop
• The Wright Flyer III, a flying replica of the first production airplane ever built
• Wright Hall at Carillon Historical Park
• The Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where in 1904 and 1905 the Wright Brothers mastered the mechanics of controlled, heavier-than-air flight
• The Wright Brothers Memorial Hill
• The US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which displays over 300 aircraft and missiles, including aircraft used to transport U.S. presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy
