herr2ck: Shadow Boxing

February 2026.

Louis Hoster’s brewery was the largest Columbus brewery in what is now known as the Brewery District. Its stables, also known as the Worly Building, have an unusual level of detail for a utilitarian building. The fanciful Queen Anne corner turrets, vaulted windows, and prominent entrances very much ennoble the design.

The Hoster Stables are located at 503 South Front Street in the Brewery District neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. The complex is bordered by the main Hoster Brewery complex to the north, Liberty Street and the site of the Born Capital Brewery to the south, Front Street to the east, and a parking lot to the west.

History

I detailed the history of the Hoster Brewery in its own post, so this one will just cover the stables in particular. Hoster’s stables were located on the site of the current Racking/Wash House Building (c. 1895), which was much closer to the main brewery buildings. These were demolished for its construction, and a new stables building was completed between 1891 and 1899, likely in 1893. At its peak, the building housed 125 horses.

In 1903, a brewery workers’ strike occurred across the breweries in the neighborhood. They sought improved wages, better working hours, and more say in the employment process. Hoster’s brewery was the most picketed due to their refusal to let the workers being involved in hiring or firing others, and they heavily cracked down on bottling plant workers who had been caught stealing some of the company’s product for themselves. The strikers blocked the stable exits in response, stopping the leaving wagons from delivering beer.

The brewery fully closed in 1920, and by 1922 the stables were being used as a grocery warehouse. In 1937, it was the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company (later American Standard), and a now-demolished addition to the west was used as a foundry. Between 1955 and 1962, the building was a warehouse once again. In 1970, the stables were acquired by the Worly Plumbing Supply Company, earning the building its current name. Worly moved to a larger building south of the Brewery District, on Greenlawn Avenue, in 1993.

The brewery complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. At that time, it was subdivided into condos. However, in 2012, it was renovated into a mixed-use space. The original tenants were Shadowbox Live (a cabaret theater founded in 1988) and World of Beer, the latter of which closed between 2015 and 2016. Today, the building houses other performance spaces and attorneys’ offices.

Photos

Louis Hoster’s brewery had some fancy portions, but you wouldn’t expect a stable to look like anything other than, well, a barn:

Here, however, we have a solid example of Queen Anne architecture. The hood-molded windows and brick materiality recall the earlier Italianate buildings in the main brewery block, but here, the turrets and gabled entrances are undoubtedly Queen Anne features. These add a touch of whimsy and make an otherwise utilitarian building more picturesque.

Detail of a turret:

These spring outward from the wall on a base of stone bands, almost looking like a drawing of a beehive. The stone shaft has decorative panels, which align with the corbelled cornice beneath the roof. The conical roof uses hexagonal slate tiles, capped with a pointy finial. Interestingly, the windows are rectangular, versus the semicircular vaulting of those on the flat walls adjacent. The care put into the design of these turrets makes them very picturesque indeed.

One of the more regular portions of the east facade, between the projecting gables:

Here, we can better see that the building is largely brick, with some stone (probably limestone) accents for decoration. Stone is expensive, so it is only used for string courses, the foundation, and the keystones of the hood molds. The roof’s asphalt tiles were likely slate when the building was first completed, as is the case with the turrets.

Zoomed in on the fenestration:

There is subtle applied ornamentation, which is incorporated into the brick walls itself. It can be seen on the hood molds, below the string course between the first and second floors, and beneath the roof’s eave.

One of the projecting gables, which house the building’s entrances:

I speculate that this is where horses once entered and left the stables. I say this because it faces Front Street, and the opening is twice the height of a typical doorway. However, there aren’t any historic photos viewable online, so I could be entirely wrong here.

Detail of the stone keystone and brickwork:

This is on the other entrance on this side, but the details are identical. Also note the wavy brickwork on the right due to the building settling.

Zoomed in on the second floor and roof:

These peaked gables provide some rhythm across what would otherwise be a very regular facade. The large vaulted window in the middle has limestone voussoirs. Each corner has a small, rounded turret built of buff brick, and those along with the roof’s peak have decorative metal pinnacles.

The two gabled entrances from Blenkner Street:

Looking at the Front Street facade from the northeast:

Unlike the large, rectangular first-floor window openings of the east facade (which are probably alterations), the south end has smaller, segmentally arched windows.

The gabled entrances are largely identical, but they have segmentally arched second-floor windows instead of semicircular ones:

The gable itself is also very similar, minus the brick circle here instead of stone:

Now I wonder if the rectangular stone plug here once held a crane to hoist up hay bales for the horses.

A series of regular window bays:

Southwest corner:

This is also probably the best way to see the south facade as a whole, since it is too wide to capture even with my widest angle.

Angled view of the north facade:

The west facade is the most utilitarian and has possibly been altered. Openings are smaller and rectangular, and modern garage doors with I-beam lintels span the first floor: