Ault Park – Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati has bigger-name attractions, but for a quiet, genuinely gorgeous stop that most out-of-towners never find, it’s hard to beat Ault Park. Up on a hilltop in the Mount Lookout neighborhood, it’s the city’s fourth-largest park, and the centerpiece is a 1930 Italian Renaissance pavilion presiding over formal gardens, a cascading fountain, and a terrace with a view that runs for miles.
The park dates to 1911, named for Levi Ault, a Cincinnati park commissioner who, with his wife, donated much of the land, and it grew out of landscape architect George Kessler’s 1907 plan for a citywide park system. The pavilion opened on Memorial Day of 1930, designed by the firm Fechheimer & Ihorst: a two-level Italianate building with a broad terrace, an arched loggia, and that signature entrance of double stone staircases with water cascading down between them.
Climb the steps and you can walk straight through the open-air pavilion, then up to the terrace for a sweep over the Little Miami valley. From up top, the whole formal garden lays out below you too, the cascade and flower beds framed by the pavilion’s stonework.
It’s free, open dawn to dusk, and it’s a favorite for weddings and photo shoots for obvious reasons. Grab a coffee, wander the gardens, and climb up top for the view. Easily worth a half hour, longer if the light’s cooperating.
