Bryn Du Mansion

Local businessman Henry D. Wright originally constructed a mansion on this site as an Italianate Villa type structure in 1865. It was constructed of sandstone quarried from the property. Jonas McCune became the owner within a year after construction and the property became known as McCune’s Villa. Several others owned the property prior to John Sutphin Jones, who made his fortune in the railroad and coal businesses, purchased the property in 1905. It was Jones who named the estate “Bryn Du”, Welsh for Dark Hills, and lived there with his wife and children. Jones soon hired architect Frank Packard of Columbus who orchestrated the mansion renovation and construction of the outbuildings in the first decade of the 20th Century. This renovation took nearly five years and transformed the mansion into its Georgian-Federal style design.