[1] The building was originally a massive house; its first resident, William C. Neff, desired that his home be patterned after the English Kenilworth Castle.

[2]: 10  Neff only lived in his great house for a few years; in 1876, it was acquired by the Academy of the Sacred Heart, which needed to leave its previous location on Grandin Road.

The Academy used the property for nearly a century until closing entirely in 1970,[3] but it had remained active among Catholic schools until shortly before the end; in the late 1960s, it became a founding member of the Girls Greater Cincinnati League.

[3] Such windows, emblematic of the Gothic Revival style, were also used for later construction; they form a crucial component of an attached chapel built during the school's occupation of the building.

[2]: 9  Inside, hand-carven wood panelling is exceptionally extensive: the Swiss woodworkers whom Neff hired for the purpose required two full years of work to complete the carvings.