Windsor Hospital

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Windsor Hospital
Established 1898
Construction Began 1844
Opened 1927
Closed 2005
Current Status Closed
Building Style Single Building
Location Cleveland, OH
Architecture Style Greek Revival
Alternate Names
  • Prospect Sanitarium




History[edit]

Windsor Hospital was a 71-bed not-for-profit hospital for the treatment of acute neuropsychiatric disorders and chemical dependency in adolescents and adults. Windsor Hospital was founded in 1898 by Dr. Christian Sihler, a neurologist and the first chief of staff at Lutheran Hospital to treat convalescents, mainly those with minor nerve disorders requiring isolation and rest. The hospital took its name from its original site on Windsor Ave. (later Chester Ave.) in Cleveland. The hospital incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in 1956 with a board of 3 trustees, later increased to 4. In 1938 Windsor Hospital moved to a fireproof building on Prospect Ave., where it was renamed Prospect Sanitarium. This facility closed in 1942. In 1927 a second site had been purchased in Chagrin Falls. Known as Linden Hall, it offered postoperative care; it closed shortly after the stock market crash in 1929. It reopened in 1932 as Windsor Hospital 2 under a third brother, Edmund Sihler.

In its early years, Windsor used hydrotherapy to treat first typhoid fever and nervous disorders, then psychiatric patients. In the 1920s and 1930s, the hospital in Cleveland cared largely for state psychiatric patients as a result of an overflow from state mental hospitals, while the hospital in Chagrin Falls treated mainly private patients. This emphasis on private patients continued in Chagrin Falls after the closing of the Cleveland facility. From the 1950s, Windsor Hospital experienced a steady shift to short-term care. In the 1980s it implemented a developmental school (for adolescents) and increasingly emphasized the treatment of chemical dependency. In the early 1980s, St. Luke's Medical Center, in partnership with Windsor, proposed to build a $20 million, 143-bed hospital on the Windsor Hospital site. The plan was dropped in 1984 because of a downturn in the local hospital industry. The hospital manager in 1994 was David G. Blackburn and the hospital was owned by Mental Health Management of McLean, VA.

The Windsor complex in Chagrin Falls operated for 78 years until closing permanently in 2005. The entire property was purchased in 2007 by a developer, and again sold in 2012 to a couple who made numerous renovations. The structure was then left to continue to fall into further disrepair, and the city looked to demolish it since no buyers were stepping up. In 2013, the structure was brought back to life when Auburn-based developer Robert Micco signed a purchase agreement to buy the 21-acre property. In partnership with Gary Spaeth of Manorbrook Homes Inc. they built 32 homes on the property. The home now sits in front of the neighborhood, which sits along Falls Walk Way and Pear Tree Circle.