'This is a jewel': Olde Towne East homes tour channels neighborhood pride
In 1999, when Olde Towne East resident David Fleisher set out to buy his current home on Franklin Avenue, everybody thought he was "absolutely insane." He said they may have been right.
"When I got here, not one bathroom fully functioned, so I had to shave in one bathroom, the toilet in another bathroom worked, the shower in a third," Fleisher said. "So my morning regimen was a lot of exercise."
The property, a single-family home that had been converted into a duplex, had been boarded up for months. There was leftover food still sitting in the oven, previous tenants had kept the water running in the upstairs kitchen and water damage would eventually bring down the ceiling in the dining room — a sight that would have any prospective homeowner running away in horror.
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But not Fleisher. "I thought, this is the one," he said.
Now, when guests walk into Fleisher's Queen Anne-style home, Fleisher said, a chorus of wows and round eyes greet him; an appropriate response to a functioning 1926 Wurlitzer theater pipe organ in the foyer.
This weekend, Fleisher and his partner Mike McKinley's home, along with 14 others in the neighborhood, will open their doors to the public as part of the annual Olde Towne East Sumer Tour of Homes. A neighborhood tradition going strong since 1982, the tours came about at a time when the area was beginning to see a resurgence.
In the late 1800s, the neighborhood began to take shape as a wealthy suburban enclave occupied by prominent figures in politics, architecture, business and the arts thanks to innovations in transportation.
But with the rise of the middle class and new suburbs in the 1920s, homeowners began moving to more distant suburbs, the new Interstate 71 divided the neighborhood from the city center and white flight had deeply affected the economic wellness of the area.
Homeownership was down, mansions were gutted, turned into apartments, boarding houses and nursing homes. But by the 1970s and '80s, the area began to attract a new crowd drawn by the neighborhood's unique housing stock of Victorian mansions and rich historical significance with relatively cheap prices.
The Olde Towne East Neighborhood Association (OTENA), a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1975 to promote civic pride and cultural awareness, serving a growing community of residents with a vision to bring these homes to life, along with the surrounding neighborhood.
The tours, OTENA tour committee member Alex Macke said, is a way for current homeowners to channel this history and invite the community to experience it for themselves.
"They're a steward of something that was here long before them, and that stewardship is letting the public into the private setting," Macke said.
Of these people is Gail Larned and Eric Marlow, two artists who bought their South Monroe Avenue home in 1982 for $20,000 with a $30,000 urban-development grant that helped fund rehabilitation of the then fire-damaged house.
But they aren't the first artists to reside there: Their house, designed by architect and Franklin County Commissioner George Bellows Sr., was once the home to his son and painter George Bellows. This year, their garden will be a stop on the tour.
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"There was (a) one-bedroom suite that wasn't damaged and that's where we settled," Larned said. "Every day, we were doing something on this place for years. It was worth it, you know? I love my neighborhood. I love my community. I can't think of any other place I’d want to live besides here."
According to Larned, who was instrumental in getting the first tours up and running, the tradition was initially a way for residents to share where their properties were in the rehabilitating and restoring process, sharing ideas, inspiration and exchanging different solutions for different issues they faced. For Fleisher, it was this spirit of sharing that helped him through renovations.
While Fleisher recognizes that his restoration project was not normal or easy, he said he hopes visitors of the tour will become inspired to pursue their own visions, just as he was by his neighbors.
"This was the place where I could do some things that I wanted to do, as far as restoring and decorating it, and of course having huge amounts of help," Fleisher said.
"I think people should feel free to, if they want to restore something, if they want to have a particular interest or passion, follow it. I think this house is kind of a testament to that for me."
Today, the tours remain a site of neighborhood community. Russell Hunter, a newer resident on South 18th Street who moved in right before the pandemic hit in March of 2020, said he hoped to meet neighbors and share the work he's done with the property.
But the legacy of the tours, he said, is not just about individual homes, but about appreciation toward the entire Olde Towne East neighborhood, all it has to offer from the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens to the Lincoln Theatre and its historical journey, from trial to triumph.
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"This is a jewel," Hunter said. "People should be proud of it."
At a glance
This year, the Olde Towne East Summer Tour of Homes will run from 12 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 14 and will start at the Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls, 1390 Bryden Road.
The self-guided tour will include a total of 15 stops, and though walkable, free shuttle buses will be available throughout the day at stops indicated on the map.
Tickets are $20 each and are available for purchase at oldetowneeast.org/tour..
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Olde Town East homes tour displays neighborhood's unique housing stock
