Dexter Mausoleum at Spring Grove Cemetery

The story

When English whiskey baron Edmund Dexter set out to build a family tomb in the late 1860s, he didn't settle for a modest granite headstone. He hired architect James Keyes Wilson and poured roughly $100,000—an obscene sum at the time—into erecting a miniature French Gothic cathedral inside Section 20 of Spring Grove Cemetery. Perched on a rise overlooking a quiet lake, the structure boasts intricate stone tracery, weathered gargoyles, and the only set of flying buttresses in Cincinnati.

Behind the dramatic stonework lies a classic tale of running out of money. Construction stopped in 1869 when family funds ran low, leaving ambitious plans—including an interior elevator and custom stained-glass windows—forever on the drawing board. Below the main floor, an underground vault contains 36 catacombs, but only 20 hold Dexter family remains. The remaining 16 crypts will stay empty forever because modern cemetery safety standards deem the narrow subterranean spaces unusable.

Because the mausoleum is a private family-owned structure rather than cemetery property, Spring Grove officials cannot execute a full restoration. Decades of damp Ohio weather, crumbling soft sandstone, and invasive ivy have compromised the building's stability, leaving the iron doors permanently padlocked. What you're left with is a grand, hollow shell—a monument to Victorian ambition left locked in plain sight.