On Feb. 19, 1941, Clevelanders celebrated the conversion of a Euclid Avenue skyscraper “built as a place of luxury and leisure into a place for work, study and accomplishment.”
Those were the words of Ellwood H. Fisher, chairman of the board of trustees for Fenn College and namesake for the pool in the college’s new home, the building originally built for Cleveland’s National Town and Country Club, one of many clubs that dotted Cleveland in the 1920s, where members could gather in privacy to relax, eat and drink.
The National Town and Country Club made plans for a 22-story skyscraper on Euclid Avenue, breaking ground in November 1929: an exceptional case of bad timing, as the stock market had crashed at the end of October. The club held one holiday lunch before fading into oblivion.
In 1937, the building was acquired for $250,000 by Fenn College, which had been incorporated a year earlier, but whose roots went back to the previous century, as an educational outreach of the local YMCA. The following year, the college moved into its new self-contained home, with room for classrooms, office space and student amenities — which in 1941 came to include one of the finest pools in Ohio, featuring skylights, expansive locker facilities and bleachers.
The pool was dedicated with a swimming exhibition and a match against Slippery Rock, which Fenn lost. Fenn became part of Cleveland State University in 1964, and the Fenn Tower still stands, having undergone a $20 million renovation in the early 2000s. Today, it’s a residence hall.
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