
This splendid and massive Richardsonian Romanesque, fourteen-room mansion with Chateauesque elements is sited on Sharon's main street. It was built for iron manufacturer and philanthropist Frank Henry Buhl and his wife, Julia Forker Buhl. The architects employed gray sandstone, conical towers, and gabled dormers in the design, in emulation of a French castle. A one-story stable with a steeply pitched roof and circular tower is joined to the west side of the house by a portecochere. After Mrs. Buhl's death in 1936, the mansion was converted to apartments, and in 1997, to an art gallery, guest rooms, and spa. The owners of the Buhl house also converted, in 1984, the former Charles Koonce House (1854; c. 1900 portico) at 2884 Lake Road in the village of Clark, northeast of Sharon, into a twenty-seven-room bed-and-breakfast, which they named “Tara” for its similarities to the house in the movie Gone with the Wind (1939).