COVINGTON -- The Licking Riverside neighborhood is, in a sense, the Rosetta Stone to Greater Cincinnati's riverfront roots.

Karen Rafuse paints the trim on a window at her Covington home, known as the Carneal House. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

Like the tablet that provided the key to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Covington's neighborhood bordering the Ohio and Licking rivers provides a capsule of the way people used to live.

As riverfronts gave way to floodwalls, factories and stadiums, Covington's Licking Riverside is the last remaining residential neighborhood.

"The folks from Tall Stacks have said repeatedly that Covington has the only authentic bit of riverfront left," said Leah Konicki, the city's historic preservation specialist.

In two centuries, the area has gone from commercial center, to estates for riverboat captains and tobacco merchants, to apartments and low-income housing and, now, to one of the swankiest addresses in the region.

Peter and Karen Rafuse bought the Carneal House, Covington's oldest surviving home.

"We came and looked at it, and fell in love," she said. "And here we are."

Licking Riverside has its roots in Thomas Kennedy's purchase of 200 acres at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers. There he built his house in 1791 and operated a ferry to Cincinnati.

In the 1850s, the area became the address for the cream of Covington society.

"That is when it began to take on the character it has today," Ms. Konicki said. The opening of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge after the Civil War gave the area its landmark.

Ms. Rafuse said the neighborhood at one point was a "genteel slum."

"For a long time it was very difficult to get banks to loan money to buy houses down here," Ms. Rafuse said.

Paul Cleaver of Florence enjoys the view and the shade tree next to the Chief Little Turtle statue on Covington's historic Riverside Drive. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

Attorney Patrick Flannery grew up in the neighborhood and returned in 1954 to raise his family.

He found a home that was tied up in an estate, and was set to be a rest home.

"The high waters in the spring scared the old folks, thank God," Mr. Flannery said, and he was able to buy it.

It was a pretty good place to grow up, too. His father, a lawyer, bought the home of former U.S. Sen. Richard Ernst in 1937 and turned it into a hotel.

While being a bellhop, maid, washer and painter at the hotel, Mr. Flannery found the neighborhood to be a playground suited for Huckleberry Finn.

He and his brother took slippery slides into the Licking and sat on the girders of the Fourth Street Bridge.

Respect for the water is a must.

The 1937 flood had water two feet deep on Second Street. Last year's flooding drenched basements on Riverside, and water was up to the windowsills of one home.

The neighborhood could have been protected BY the floodwall, which stops at the foot of Greenup. Residents turned down the chance. Ms. Rafuse, the president of the neighborhood association, doesn't hear regrets about the decision.

The next biggest threat to the neighborhood is the near-constant desire of developers to commercialize the area.

Mr. Flannery labels them "predators."

"So far we've been able to beat them at every turn," he said. Some residents strategically bought property on different blocks throughout the neighborhood to try to prevent development. The biggest threat came in 1968, with a plan to put a revolving restaurant atop a skyscraper on the riverbank with a marina below. The fighting ended with a Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that stopped a plan to blacktop the riverbank for parking.

City officials credited the neighborhood's revitalization with helping the resurgence of the rest of the riverfront.

Residents give tours of their homes and gardens to raise money for the "war chest" to fight development attempts.

The latest use of the war chest is to stop a threat of another kind -- visitors who vandalize. A $2,000 reward is being offered for the identity of whoever cut trees on the riverbank, presumably for a better view of Labor Day weekend fireworks.

Most residents surrender during Riverfest. They can't leave because roads are closed. They can't entertain because guests can't get there.

"Riverfest is an ordeal, and we all call each other on Monday morning and say, "Thank God, that's over,' " Ms. Rafuse said.

The other festival that commandeers the neighborhood is the Tall Stacks riverboat celebration.

"Tall Stacks," Ms. Rafuse said, "one of our neighbors calls death BY calliope."