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From 1914 until his death, Ridgeleigh Terrace was the home of Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), founder of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) who also headed General Motors research activities. Kettering made many significant contributions to the development of the gasoline and diesel engines that transformed American transportation in the 20th century.
Delco Electronics Corporation was the automotive electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors founded by Charles Kettering and Edward A. Deeds in 1909. Initially Kettering and Deeds were co-workers at National Cash Register Company (NCR). Kettering and Deeds had a lifelong professional relationship and friendship. In 1904, Deeds hired Kettering at NCR to motorize the cash register.
Around 1908, Deeds asked for help with a car he was building from a kit. Working in one of Deeds' barns with spare-time help from William A. Chryst and other NCR friends, Kettering developed a high-energy spark ignition system to replace the weak-spark model supplied with the kit. Leaving NCR in 1909, Kettering focused on final development of this ignition set and demonstrations were favorably received. In 1909, when Henry Leland of Cadillac ordered 5,000 ignition sets, Deeds and Kettering formed the Dayton Engineering Laboratories company. The ignition system was introduced on the 1910 Cadillac.
In 1911, Kettering invented and filed for U.S. Patent 1,150,523 for the first useful electric starter, adapted from a cash register motor. The starters were first installed by Cadillac on production models in 1912.
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The Tudor Revival house, also known as Ridgeleigh Terrace, was reputed to be the first house in the United States with electric air conditioning. It was designed by the Dayton, Ohio firm of Schenck & Williams. It was destroyed by fire in 1995 and was rebuilt with significant, unsympathetic modifications from the original blueprints by Kettering's son's widow. It now functions as a conference center.
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