Historical society headquarters among Bexley House & Garden Tour stops
Participants on the 14th annual Bexley House & Garden Tour will not only raise funds to help local students attend college, they’ll learn about each home’s architecture and the history of prominent previous owners.
Presented by the Bexley Women’s Club, the tour is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. June 5 and features the interior and exterior of six homes, two private gardens and an urban park. Proceeds go toward college scholarships for high school seniors who reside in Bexley.
During a May 12 presentation at the Bexley Public Library (BPL), BPL local history librarian David Distelhorst and local architect Amy Lauerhass described the historic nature of the homes on the tour.
Among the properties featured is 2080 Clifton Ave., the headquarters of the Bexley Historical Society & Museum, which is adjacent to the Jeffrey Mansion recreational facility and park.
In the early 1900s, the building was part of the estate of industrialist and early Columbus mayor Robert Jeffrey and originally served as living quarters for the Jeffrey family’s property manager and chauffeur, Distelhort said.
“In 1941, the Jeffrey family donated the mansion and the land to the city of Bexley for a park,” Distelhort said. “At that point, the city of Bexley had the custodian as a resident, and later the supervisor of the Bexley recreation department lived in the cottage.”
In 2006, the facility opened as the Bexley Historical Society & Museum, Distelhort said.
“The museum will be open on tour day,” he said.
Two other historic properties featured on the tour originally were owned by administrators and faculty at Capital University: 2406 N. Havenwood Drive, a 1929 house that was owned by Capital’s then-dean of faculty, and 726 Montrose Ave., a 1922 house owned by a longtime faculty member, Distelhort said.
The Montrose Avenue house “was the home of Capital University professor and head of the mathematics department, Simon A. Singer, who was at Capital for 19 years,” Distelhort said.
The Montrose Avenue house has undergone stylistic changes as ownership changed over the decades, such as the addition of an enclosed porch in the 1960s, Lauerhauss said.
“I look at homeowners as caretakes of the home for that period of time,” she said.
The library offers free services to help homeowners research the history of their homes, Distelhort said.
“One of those is the abstract and title collection. Abstracts and titles are documents that were required during much of the 20th century when transferring property,” he said. “They are summaries of the documents on file with the Franklin County, Ohio, recorder’s office and trace the history of a plot of land back to the early 1800s, noting when and from whom to whom the property was transferred. They are excellent sources for researching a house’s history.”
Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the tour. Food trucks also will be on hand. For tickets and information, visit bexleywomen.org/house-garden-tour.
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