The Enslow Mansion
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This 1976 photo show the former Enslow mansion
in its final days as a funeral home.
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HUNTINGTON -- The name Enslow has
been a familiar one in Huntington since 1871,
when railroad contractor Andrew Jackson Enslow arrived to help build
the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. His son, Frank B. Enslow,
grew up in Huntington, married here and entered
the practice of law with Henry C. Simms.
In addition to his law practice, Enslow,
who died in 1917,
had extensive business interests in oil and gas, banking
and other fields. Local legend credits him
with being the city's first millionaire.
Certainly his opulent 26-room mansion at
1307 3rd Ave., was a showplace,
with silk wallpaper, oak paneling, marble fireplaces, Tiffany chandeliers
and stained-glass windows. Even the garage out back, which once
housed the Enslow family's Stanley Steamer automobile,
was a fancy affair. It had a turntable on the floor so
the auto could be turned around inside.
Built in 1893, the Enslow mansion was a
center of Huntington social
life in that long-ago era. Decades later, the elegant mansion would
also be the scene of one of Huntington's most celebrated
mysteries when, on the morning of Oct. 17, 1936, the
millionaire businessman's widow, Juliette Buffington
Enslow, was found dead - beaten, stabbed and
strangled -- in her second-floor bedroom.
Her murder was never solved.
Following the murder, the vacant mansion
was boarded up.
In 1937, R.R. Steele, who operated the Steele Funeral
Home two blocks down 3rd Avenue, purchased
the mansion and moved his business there.
In 1965, A. Ray Black bought the funeral
home and later
changed its name to Steele-Black. He and his wife
Jean lived on the home's second floor and barely
escaped with their lives when a fast-moving
fire broke out in the basement in the
early morning hours of
Aug. 23, 1977.
Firefighters had little luck battling the
blaze, which
eventually gutted the landmark structure. The
burned-out ruins were cleared away the
next year. Today, the property is
home to a used car lot.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the
Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on July 14, 2014.
Updated May 13.2019
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