The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at first attended by one teacher and one pupil in the sitting room of its founder, Sarah Kimball. The school moved several times, first to the attic of the Old Cleveland City Hall, then to the Old Kelly homestead on Wilson Avenue (now East 55th Street). Having become a co-educational school, it was renamed the Cleveland School of Art in 1892. After unsuccessful attempts to merge the school with Western Reserve University, the school became independent. In the fall of 1905, the first classes were held in a newly constructed building at the corner of Magnolia Drive and Juniper Road in Cleveland's University Circle. Beginning in 1917, the school offered classes for children and adults on weekends and in the summer.