Camp Dennison (Cincinnati, Madeira, Kenwood: house, neighborhood, school district)

[GasSippr]

Hi
My family and I were thinking of building a home in Camp Dennison. Does anyone have any experience living there? We were attracted to the area by the relatively lower cost of land and the Indian Hill school system.
Thanks for any input.
GS

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by GasSippr

Hi
My family and I were thinking of building a home in Camp Dennison. Does anyone have any experience living there? We were attracted to the area by the relatively lower cost of land and the Indian Hill school system.
Thanks for any input.
GS

I know nothing about Camp Dennison other than that it has a reputation as a kind of blue-collar area. This leads me to wonder if your kids would experience discrimination in the Indian Hill schools.

[kjbrill]

Don't forget that in addition to Camp Dennison quite a portion of Kenwood is also in the Indian Hill school district. So there is more economic stratification than you might expect. Naturally you will have some portion of stuck ups, but that can occur anywhere. Now if we were talking Cincinnati Country Day that is a different matter. But it is a good thing Cincinnati Country Day exists, since a large number of the stuck ups go there. My wife went to Indian Hill back when the percentage of ultra wealthy was much higher than it is today and she came out relatively unscathed.

It is a good school district and if you see a location in Camp Dennison which attracts you I say go for it. At least you might be moving into a school district which is not going to plead poverty every six months on election day.

[GasSippr]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

Don't forget that in addition to Camp Dennison quite a portion of Kenwood is also in the Indian Hill school district. So there is more economic stratification than you might expect. Naturally you will have some portion of stuck ups, but that can occur anywhere. Now if we were talking Cincinnati Country Day that is a different matter. But it is a good thing Cincinnati Country Day exists, since a large number of the stuck ups go there. My wife went to Indian Hill back when the percentage of ultra wealthy was much higher than it is today and she came out relatively unscathed.

It is a good school district and if you see a location in Camp Dennison which attracts you I say go for it. At least you might be moving into a school district which is not going to plead poverty every six months on election day.

Thanks for your reply. Does your wife recall anyone being "discriminated" against as mentioned in the previous post? Apparently kids from Camp Dennison are called "campers" by peers. I think my kids are too young to care at this point...like you said I don't have to worry about this school system needing bailouts :-)

[kjbrill]

In her youth my wife was a very good singer having spent years with formal voice training in the classical soprano style. Her classmates may have thought her a little weird, but the music department put her in every production they had. After we were married and I was emphatic about not moving to New York to chase an opera career, she spent a number of years visiting nursing homes in the area performing her repertoire for the old folks who were most appreciative. Those old people gave her as much satisfaction as a Metropolitan audience would, maybe more, especially considering sincerity.

I grew up in Madeira and my wife in Indian Hill. I remember Camp Dennison only from 50-60 years ago. But considering what they now call infill, Camp Dennison must be attractive to quite a few people.

One of my all time favorite places is the School House Restaurant. I remember when they had a New Years Eve party on the second floor for a square dance club my wife and I belonged to.
Yes, we were a bunch of squares. You cannot follow a square dance caller if you are inebriated. So after spending a whole night square dancing, we are presented an absolutely to die for breakfast buffet. Don't know if the School House is still operating, or how many owners they may have gone through, but this is my memory of the essence of Camp Dennison.

[SonnyDaze]

I had several friends in high school who went to Indian Hill and from what I remember, the kids from "Camp D" acted as if they had a rep to keep up. A lot of them were into drugs and alcohol and did their best to portray a "thug" image. Delinquents can pop up anywhere but just a heads up. It's interesting to drive down Cunningham Rd. and see eye-popping mansions with peacocks in the yard, then before you know it, you're in Camp Dennison where everything is very modest.

[wolden]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

Don't know if the School House is still operating, or how many owners they may have gone through, but this is my memory of the essence of Camp Dennison.

The School House is still open but we haven't been there yet. I hear it is still very good.

Camp Dennison seems like a modest area, but also quiet.

[Ohioan58]

Wow, when I think of Camp Dennison I think of this pleasant, backwoodsy feeling small town along the bike trail and Rt. 126. I didn't realize all of this stupid highly class-conscious crap saturates the area.

I suppose that if you want to live modestly you have to be 50 mi away from nowhere to not be run down by others.

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

Wow, when I think of Camp Dennison I think of this pleasant, backwoodsy feeling small town along the bike trail and Rt. 126. I didn't realize all of this stupid highly class-conscious crap saturates the area.

I suppose that if you want to live modestly you have to be 50 mi away from nowhere to not be run down by others.

It probably wouldn't come up as an issue if the area didn't share a school district with the poshest neighborhood in the entire Cincinnati area. And to clarify my initial post, I simply wondered if it's a problem. I don't have any direct knowledge that it is.

[SoFresh99]

In my day at Indian Hill (80's) "Camp D" was viewed as much lower class than Kenwood and mainly where the (few) african americans in the school lived. Being from Camp D was a definite hurdle to overcome and I don't think I saw anyone overcome it and cross those (perceived) class boundaries in their friendships. The african american kids in my class that did become popular both happened to live in Kenwood.

I think that it also had something to do with how small the population of Camp D was relative to Kenwood, so easier to ice out of popularity uniformly. My sister graduated about ten years ago and it was the same in her day.

Part of the problem is that living in Camp D you actually ride the bus with the kids who live in Indian Hill-Indian Hill, so the tastemakers actually knew where you lived and the state of your dwelling, cars, dad in his robe getting the paper, etc. Living in Kenwood we only rode the bus with other Kenwood kids and the tastemakers didn't have any insight into our actual lives and didn't necessarily have any preconceived notions about us, like they may have had about the Camp D kids. Less of a hurdle to overcome.