Burrell-King House
The Burrell-King House is the home of Oberlin Conservatory’s Community Music School. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a city of Oberlin historic landmark.
Built in 1852 some distance from its neighbors, the house served as a town seat for Jabez Lyman Burrell, an Oberlin College trustee, abolitionist, and a philanthropist. Burrell gave generous donations to the college via his coal fields and donated his house and land on East College Street to the college in 1882. The college sold the house to Henry Churchill King, who became Oberlin’s president in 1902.
The original house was a brick cube in the Greek Revival style with neo-Georgian porches and porte cochere later added by King. The house was once the official social life of the college during his presidency from 1902 to 1927. The Nordson Foundation acquired the house in 1974, and used a grant to make renovations. Oberlin Conservatory took ownership and established the Community Music School in 2002.
The school provides high quality, precollegiate instruction to students of all ages in strings, piano, winds, percussion, voice, music theory, and composition. Instruction along with recitals and concerts take place here.