by Richard Weiner
Weiner is a free-lance writer

Fifteen miles from downtown Cleveland is a five-mile stretch of lakefront that is Bay Village. In those five miles, you won't see industry, office buildings, high rises, or any large commercial enterprises. What you will see are parks, beautiful residences, woodlands, and a lot of clear views of Northeast Ohio's premier natural resource, Lake Erie.

Quiet, small Bay Village "is probably one of the most beautiful places in the United States," says Bay Village Mayor Deborah Sutherland. The city has never been industrialized, evolving from a community of fishermen and fruit farmers and summer cottages to a community of mostly single-family dwellings over the course of its history.

Bay Village, which today has a population of some 16,000 people, was first settled by the Joseph Cahoon family around 1810. The next year saw the Crocker and the Bassett families settle in. The Cahoon family's legacy lives on today at the heart of the community. Joseph Cahoon's granddaughter, Ida Maria Cahoon, who never married, was the last surviving member of the family. When she died in 1917, she left the family house and 115 acres to the then-new community of Bay Village, with the stipulation that the home be forever maintained as a library or a museum. That land is now Cahoon Memorial Park, and is at the center of Bay Village's official and recreational activities.

Ida's will was pretty interesting, and still affects life in Bay today - particularly with restrictions on the use of the land she left to the city, which prohibit alcohol and gambling. Still another restriction prohibits using it for boating or sports on Sundays. These restrictions are still in effect today. The will is posted on the Bay Village Web site (www.cityofbayvillage.com).

Another 100-acre parcel along the lakefront, once owned by Standard Oil's John Huntington, is now the Huntington Preserve of the Cleveland Metroparks.

"We have a tremendous amount of green space," says the mayor. "Everyone can bike to the center of town."

For a quiet little town, Bay certainly has filled the world with its share of celebrities. The village claims actress Patricia Heaton; actor Robert Patrick and his brother, musician Richard (Filter, Nine Inch Nails); author Richard North Patterson; as well as one George Steinbrenner.

Bay Village has a little less than 6,500 homes, and land use is an amazing 97 percent residential, and three percent commercial, says Mayor Sutherland. Its 4.6 square miles encompass 221 acres of green space, including property that is part of the Cleveland Metroparks. The community has a median income of more than $70,000, and homes can cost anywhere from $120,000 into the millions of dollars. The median value of a Bay Village home is almost $170,000, based on the year 2000 figures. "This is a very safe, quiet, mature, bedroom community," says the mayor. "It is a great place to grow a family. Over the years, we have always maintained a small-town atmosphere."

The mayor says that most of the housing stock in Bay Village is older, but that the city is in the middle of a three-year building boomlet. A few of the new houses are built on teardown properties along the lake, and some of them are valued in the millions of dollars. At the same time, most of the housing in Bay Village consists of comfortable, single-family dwellings in close-knit neighborhoods. The people here are proud of their homes, and keep them up as well as any homeowners anywhere. "People are constantly reinvesting into their homes," says Sutherland.

But the city never rests on its laurels. "Since we are a mature community," says the mayor, "we are always working hard on renewing ourselves." Having just opened a new, $2.7 million outdoor swimming pool, the city is looking to break ground soon on a new police facility, she says.

And, although there is virtually no retail business in the city, aside from two small strip malls, the mayor sees Bay Village as a place that could be a great niche market for retailers attracted by the median income levels in the city. Bay Village is now working with the Kent State University Urban Design Center to come up with a master redevelopment plan for the small retail space that the city does have. There are also ideas afoot to add some more diverse housing to the existing stock.

For now, though, Bay Village is one of the quietest, cleanest, and least industrialized non-rural communities in Northeast Ohio. Which is just the way the residents want it.