[1] Wilson designed Scarlet Oaks under commission from prominent businessman George K. Schoenberger, a Pittsburgh native who settled in Cincinnati with the intention of opening a subsidiary of his father's iron-manufacturing corporation.

After Schoenberger died in 1892, she remarried the composer Charles A. E. Harriss in 1897 and occupied "Earnscliffe," a Victorian Manor house at Ottawa, Ontario.

The origin of its design is disputed: Cincinnati local tradition claims that it was modelled after a castle along the Rhine in Germany, while later architectural historians believe that no specific house was used as the pattern.

From a distance, the house's appearance is dominated by its turret and other high towers, and the great size of the building makes it unique even among Clifton's other large residences.

More than a century has passed since the house ceased to be a private residence: it was purchased by E.H. Huenefeld in 1910, who immediately donated it to local congregations of the Methodist Episcopal Church.