Mount Storm Park is a City of Cincinnati municipal park situated on a 59 acre site on the western slope of a hill overlooking the Mill Creek Valley

Mill Creek (Ohio)

The Mill Creek is a stream in southwest Ohio. It flows southwest and south from its headwaters in Liberty Township of Butler County through central Hamilton County and the heart of Cincinnati into the Ohio River just west of downtown...

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In the mid-19th century the property comprised the site of the estate of Robert Bonner Bowler, a dry goods entrepreneur and one-time Mayor of the Cincinnati neighborhood of Clifton. While visiting in Austria, Bowler met Adolph Strauch

Adolph Strauch

Adolph Strauch was a renowned landscape architect born in Silesia, Prussia, known particularly for his layout designs of cemeteries like Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio and Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. Strauch also laid out many parks in Cincinnati, Ohio, including Eden Park,...

 of the Vienna Imperial Gardens and invited him to visit if he came to America. Strauch did visit during a scheduled train layover and remained to develop the Bowler Estate.

"Mr. Strauch designed the Temple of Love in 1845, which still stands as an outstanding landmark to Mt. Storm today. The white columns of this Corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

 style pergola

Pergola

A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...

, which can be seen on the east lawn, was once the cover for a reservoir that supplied water to Mr. Bowler's seventeen greenhouses, gardens, orchards, and a waterfall and swan lake on which seven black swans swam."

Bowler hosted a number of prominent guests at the estate including Edward, Prince of Wales

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...

, later King of England, and Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

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In 1917, the old homestead was razed and the site used as a parking lot. Other than the pergola, the only remaining artifact of the Bowler estate is the wine cellar. In 1938, the Clifton Garden Club restored the "Temple of Love" and surrounding gardens.

Mount Storm Park's stone shelter or pavilion, built in 1935, overlooks the Mill Creek valley. The building was designed by Samuel Hannaford

Samuel Hannaford

Samuel Hannaford was an American architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the best known landmarks in the city, such as Music Hall and City Hall, were of his design...

& Sons and is characterized by the lack of ornament typical of "Depression Modern". The shelter building was built by Cincinnati contractor Holt & Reichard, Inc.