The Cincinnati house where William Howard Taft was born in 1857 and spent his childhood preserves the family setting that shaped the only person to serve as both president of the United States and chief justice of the Supreme Court. Built in the 1840s and bought by Alphonso Taft in 1851, the modest Greek Revival home in Mount Auburn was a family residence and a center of social and political life. Alphonso rose to national prominence, and visitors included James A. Garfield. After later alterations and decline, the house was restored using Louise Taft’s letters and diaries and is now a museum interpreting Taft’s upbringing and career.