SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio - One might expect the Shaker Historical Society to be leading the charge to preserve Horseshoe Lake.
After all, it was the North Union Shakers who created the mill pond in 1852 by damming the north and middle branches of Doan Brook.
Instead, the society has chosen to embrace a recommendation of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District that calls for removing the dam and restoring the lake to its natural streams, which is not what those hoping to save the lake wanted to hear.
So much for preserving the Shaker legacy.
And yet the issue is far more complex than whether a historic mill pond that once powered a woolen mill for a radical religious community should be saved from extinction.
It’s about the environment, recreation and, of course, cost. It’s about whether a cherished lake that straddles Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights - and has been as much a part of the neighborhood as the stately homes, towering trees and winding roads – should be returned to something more resembling the natural state of Doan Brook before the Shakers arrived.
“We did feel it was important to take a stance because we are right across the street from it,” said Brianna Treleven, 31, executive director of the Shaker Historical Society, which is housed in a Tudor mansion on South Park Boulevard near Horseshoe Lake. “We are the historical society and we were getting questions. So, it felt inappropriate to just kind of sit by and not say anything.”
A multitude of other voices, including those of historians seeking to preserve the lake, have weighed in on the Sewer District proposal, which was made public in June and endorsed Monday night by the Shaker Heights City Council.
The proposal calls for more than eliminating Horseshoe Lake, which because of safety concerns was drained two years ago and has morphed from a mud pit into a scruffy depression overgrown with weeds. It also would upgrade the failing dam at Lower Shaker Lake, an older mill pond built by the Shakers along Doan Brook that sits in both Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, thus preserving it for posterity and the enjoyment of the community.
Emotional attachment triggers neighborhood debate
Still, removing Horseshoe Lake doesn’t sit well with many who have become emotionally attached to the neighborhood oasis because of its history, its aesthetics or the role it may have played in a particularly poignant time in their lives.
“It’s just a beautiful, placid place where people get a lot of satisfaction,” said Bert Stratton, 71, a Cleveland Heights resident during a recent visit to the dam. “They come here. They take pictures of the sunset. They look at the herons and for all I know they throw their parents ashes in here.”
Blue “SAVE HORSESHOE LAKE!” signs have sprung up around both cities, an online petition has collected more than 1,600 signatures and wealthy residents near the lake have joined a broader group that has hired a law firm to help it explore options.
Stratton created a Facebook Page, “Dam it. Horseshoe Lake,” that along with the Nextdoor neighborhood app have been ablaze with commentary, largely civil, sometimes informative, but usually hopeful that some solution can be found to save the lake.
Some comments revolve around whether a lake or stream would be better for promoting wildlife, or whether local history is worth preserving. Others speculate as to how a new dam could be funded and whether the Sewer District should be trusted.
But none of the ideas seemed to coalesce around a plan, Treleven said, “and so for us, when we were trying to gather evidence and facts and do research, it’s hard to support an alternative that doesn’t have a plan like the current situation.”
Treleven said she and the board relied on statements from the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership and the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, both supporters of removing the dam, for their environmental expertise, but that she and the board had thoughts of their own regarding how Shaker Heights history should be represented.
The result was a statement reflecting a more inclusive, holistic view of the issue that clearly caught some people by surprise.
“Horseshoe Lake has been a beloved aesthetic feature of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights for over a century, and many of our staff, trustees, and members will grieve its loss,” reads the statement posted on the Shaker Historical Society website. “However, as historians, we would be remiss to ignore the thousands of years of Indigenous history and stewardship of the land before the Connecticut Western Reserve was occupied and before the North Union Shakers dammed Doan Brook.”
Diverging historians
Among those flabbergasted by the society’s position were members of the Cleveland Heights Historical Society, which came out strongly in favor of saving the lake. How could an organization devoted to preserving history be willing to allow the dam and lake to disappear?
“I think the majority of us feel that this is so critical that we just cannot understand why it can’t be saved,” said Bill Hopkins, a trustee of the Cleveland Heights Historical Society, which has a website, but not a physical location like its counterpart in Shaker Heights.
“How can you throw away this gorgeous lake,” he said. “… It was pretty much handmade by the Shakers, and they did a beautiful job with those two lakes.”
A statement on the Cleveland Heights Historical Society’s Facebook page also references enhancements made as the Van Sweringen brothers developed Shaker Heights around the lakes.
“They are the twin hearts of our two cities,” reads the statement, “and by virtue of their significance for over a century to so many citizens and families, we believe they both have a historical right to exist.”
David Goldberg, former co-chairman of AmTrust Bank who grew up with the north branch of Doan Brook rippling through his front yard, has been working on behalf of a group hoping to find a way to save the lake, knowing that one might not exist.
“I told the CEO of the Sewer District I look at them like the Cleveland Clinic,” Goldberg said, outstanding in reputation but still subject to a second opinion.
Grasping for alternatives
On Monday night, Goldberg asked the Shaker Heights City Council to delay voting until his group had a chance to explore other options. He even offered up an idea of his own – keeping the lake, but rerouting Doan Brook around it – thus providing the best of both worlds.
“I’m getting out of my comfort zone, but I’m trying to play engineer,” he told the council.
Anthony Coyne, the attorney representing Goldberg’s group, said they will evaluate their options in the wake of the Council’s 6 to 1 vote to adopt the Sewer District’s recommendation.
“We were very disappointed by the lack of consideration given the hundreds of families that have objected to the elimination and destruction of horseshoe Lake, which is a historic landmark and historic areas,” Coyne said. “… It appears they’re more concerned about cost.”
Only Councilwoman Anne Williams was interested in hearing more from the residents, as well as a consulting engineer hired by Cleveland Heights, voting no on the resolution even though she said it’s likely to be the direction things ultimately move.
Other elected officials seemed to have had enough of the debate.
“We could always do more research, but I think we have done enough to make this decision,” said Mayor David Weiss, who did not have a vote, but expressed his support for the resolution during the meeting.
A matter of safety
Foremost in the minds of the council was safety, an issue largely ignored, if not dismissed in the posts that focus more on the beauty of the lake, its history and the migratory birds that would go elsewhere.
That’s because the Ohio Department of Natural Resources ordered the lake level lowered by 3 feet in 2018 and then fully drained the following year for safety reasons. The earthen dam that extends from South Park Boulevard in Shaker Heights to North Park Boulevard in Cleveland Heights has become grossly compromised.
The Sewer District claims that if the lake were full and the dam gave out a 16-foot wall of water would reach Lee Road to the west in two minutes and eventually flood parts of University Circle in Cleveland.
Picking up the tab
Safety aside, the cost appears to make replacing the dam prohibitive as elected officials seem unwilling to raise taxes or borrow money to do so. And the Sewer District has made that decision even easier, saying it would pay nothing to replace the dam because it provides no stormwater benefits, but would foot the bill entirely if its $28.3 million proposal that includes removing the dam goes forward.
That means Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights would have to pay the full cost of replacing the dam, estimated at $20.7 million, but would certainly pay millions more over time as the lake would have to be periodically dredged to remove the sediment that builds up and degrades water quality.
Fueling mistrust, however, is the fact that the Sewer District spent more than $5 million in recent years to dredge the smaller Green Lake, which is also known as the Duck Pond, and overhaul its dam. The lake, which is fed by the south branch of Doan Brook, was built by the Van Sweringens in 1911.
Frank Greenland, director of watershed programs at the Sewer District, said the work on Green Lake came down to a matter of timing. The Sewer District began talking with Shaker Heights about improvements to Green Lake before the District began work on a $10 million stormwater management plan that determined saving Horseshoe Lake was not a good idea.
If the issue came up today, Greenland said, the Sewer District would probably not pay to improve Green Lake and its dam.
What’s next?
The future of Horseshoe Lake has not been definitively decided because Cleveland Heights City Council still must weigh in, presumably after a consulting engineer hired by the city has a chance to provide an independent assessment of the Sewer District’s plan.
Among the elected officials under the spotlight is Kahlil Seren, vice president of the Cleveland Heights City Council and a candidate for mayor.
Unlike his fellow board members, Seren did not vote to have an independent consultant assess the Sewer District’s recommendation and said he has no reason to mistrust the Sewer District.
“I live near the lake and I’ve enjoyed it for a long time and on a personal level I wish that I could see a way to keep the lake,” he said, but considering the physical condition of the dam and the cost involved in restoring or replacing it he doesn’t think that’s possible.
Seren said he finds it hard to justify spending money on preserving the lake “and taking those funds potentially away from other uses of the city.”
“The city of Cleveland Heights has had a debate about a few different areas of our city receiving less attention and less resources and staff time for improvement and development,” Seren said, speaking specifically about the Noble Road corridor and the Taylor Road business district, and that spending millions of dollars on Horseshoe Lake will make it more difficult to invest in those areas.
That as much as anything seems to be a common sentiment among many of the supporters of the Sewer District recommendation, along with a belief that returning the lake to its more natural state is just a better idea.
But while the debate has been passionate, and civil, there may be one organization – the Shaker Heights Historical Society - that has stuck its neck out further than others.
Treleven realizes she and her board, which skews younger than in past years, have stirred up plenty of emotions – ones that may not serve them well when they start fundraising again.
“People have started putting historical society in quotes when they refer to us as though we are no longer legitimate,” Treleven said.
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