Perhaps the most iconic place at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum is the Dexter Mausoleum and Chapel.

It was built on a slope overlooking Geyser Lake in the mid-1860s for Kentucky bourbon baron Edmund Dexter. Dexter was an English immigrant and well known businessman who received important guests like Charles Dickens and the Prince of Whales.

Architect Joseph Foster designed this gothic structure as well as a couple of other buildings at the cemetery. For this project, he took his cues from Sainte Chappelle in Paris and Chichester Cathedral in England, creating a building with the only flying buttresses in all of Cincinnati (these are a structural element on the outside that give the building strength).

The price tag was a cool $100,000 which would be well over $1.3 million today.

There are twelve catacombs on the lower level and a chapel above. They ran out of money before completing the project with a stained glass window and an elevator for moving the caskets.

I read a couple of articles that indicate this sandstone structure could be endangered. It evidently has some structural issues that developed over time and some decorative elements have fallen off the building. Look closely at the center near the top and you’ll still see an E for Edmund.

If you go to Spring Grove, do not miss this spectacular place. It’s well worth a stop to admire and look around.

One more thing. Lest you think your family is screwed up, I give you Exhibit A that it could always be worse. Click here to read about the descendant of the Dexters who built this mausoleum and how she reached from beyond the grave to get her nephew to change his name, hurt her own sister, and cause a firestorm of legal wrangling. It’s shocking what people will do sometimes!