herr2ck: East Town Street Historic District, pt. 1

April 2026.

The East Town Street Historic District is one of several formerly fashionable residential neighborhoods on the east side. However, most of its homes are earlier Italianates, versus the later Queen Anne houses of Olde Towne East. The houses are also high-style examples with fanciful details as opposed to the more vernacular designs elsewhere in Columbus, due to the neighborhood’s prominence with affluent residents.

The East Town Street Historic District is located in the Discovery District neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. The district includes Town Street from Grant Avenue to Lester Drive/I-71, as well as a few properties on Rich Street and Franklin Avenue. It has different boundaries on its CRHP listing versus the earlier NRHP listing. This post specifically covers the houses west of Washington Avenue, which are generally simpler and less historically intact.

370 East Town Street [demolished]

(NRHP listing)

Now demolished for a parking lot, this grand Italianate stood next to the Lazarus House. It had a large belvedere above the entrance and an asymmetrical plan.

Frederick Lazarus House (380 East Town Street)

The house in 1892. (Wikimedia)

The Frederick Lazarus House is an example of the Second Empire style and was completed in 1886. Frederick Lazarus was the president of F & R Lazarus & Company and the son of Simon Lazarus, its founder. In 1906, the family moved to a larger house on Bryden Road. In 1976, when the NRHP listing was written, it was used as a doctor’s office. The doctor sold it to his student in 1979, who briefly used it as a surgeon’s office and continued restoration work. It was then renovated for office rentals in 1982.

With threats of demolition coming in the 2010s, the house was restored again through tax credits by preservationists Jeffrey Darbee and Nancy Recchie (who also wrote AIA Guide to Columbus and live next door) between 2013 and 2014, which converted the interior to three luxury apartments and restored historic features inside. The current owners acquired the house in 2020 and completed more restoration work.

The porch is long gone and the base seems to have a stone facade, an alteration, but the house is in good condition today.

Darbee-Recchie House (382 East Town Street)

It’s tough to see behind the trees, but I was actually fooled into thinking this was a historic house. In hindsight, I should have known by the masonry and large, out-of-scale window openings. The house was built in 2003, and according to the auditor’s website, it is the home of Jeffrey Darbee and Nancy Recchie, local historians. The AIA Guide to Columbus, coincidentally written by them, states that the exterior stone was salvaged from a demolished building on State Street.

Amelia & Ralph Lazarus House (390-392 East Town Street)

This duplex was built in 1888 by Abram B. Cohen. It is notable for the many ornamental details in the facade, such as carved brick and terra-cotta.

Detail of the entrance, which has its original wooden doors, a vaulted transom window above, and a stone lintel that shields the area:

Windows above, with a denticulated cornice and roof gable:

One of the two large bays that project outwards, versus the recessed entrance bays:

The windows are framed with a dark brown stone, which is subtly carved with rounded edges. The windows themselves also appear to be original.

The space between the windows has inset square terra-cotta tiles, which have a checkerboard pattern with two different motifs:

One of the two larger rosettes in the corners:

The second floor has similar tiles, but they use different patterns:

Above the second-floor windows, a unique denticulated brick is used:

Second-floor windows above the entrance to 390 E Town, which have unique corbelled corners:

Sidney McManigal House/Topiary Mansion (394 East Town Street)

This detailed Queen Anne house was built in 1886 by Sidney McManigal, a local industrialist. He was president of two coal companies (Maple Hill and White Ash), the Keokee Oil Company, and two home building companies (Perry and Ximena). From 1908 to 1914, Ohio governor Judson Harmon lived at the house. Today, the house is an event venue known as Topiary Mansion. They tend to use the phrase “Governor’s Mansion,” which is a little misleading, since it was just the residence of one specific governor instead of the state’s official Governor’s Mansion (such as the one in Olde Towne East).

The entrance has a very elaborate wooden porch, with lots of Eastlake-style details:

You can see a couple things in this shot--the unique shape of the doubled porch columns, the entrance doors (which appear original but have been retrofitted with modern hardware), and a glimpse of the woodwork inside:

The porch’s gable is a little phallic, but it has a wide variety of patterns carved into the wood here:

Detail of the roof gable and unique window lintels, which combine brick and stone:

In the alley between the house and Cristo Rey High School, we can see that the second floor has a fireplace (probably where the master bedroom is) and there is another smaller porch here with similar wooden details:

Carriage house in the rear:

405 East Town Street

This rectangular brick Italianate is a more elaborate example along this stretch, but it has been modified and currently houses businesses. It seems to have its original porch, hood molds, bracketed cornice, and cupola. However, the exterior masonry has been painted, the doors and windows have been replaced with more modern ones, and a utilitarian cinder-block addition has been built onto the rear.

Another clearer oblique view:

The porch has its original masonry base and wood details, such as the Ionic columns:

433 East Town Street

This Italianate may have been constructed as a single house, but it has the appearance of two combined rowhomes. It has since been subdivided into apartments. The exterior is altered, with a coat of salmon paint over the bricks and a modern door.

Farber House (451 East Town Street)

These apartments were built in 1934. They have a low-slung Commercial style appearance, with subtle brickwork details and a small parapet. The relative lack of detail may be a product of the Depression, but this was the same age when Art Moderne/early Modern architecture was becoming popular.

463 East Town Street

A Craftsman house, 463 E Town is probably the most recently constructed house on East Town Street, and it is already about a century old. It most likely dates to circa 1900-1920.

Heer House (475 East Town Street)

A later Victorian house, it was built in 1894. In 1976, it had been converted to office space and was used by a doctor, but it seems to be a residence again today. Like the upcoming Harry Daugherty House, it is an example of Chateauesque architecture, with its tall roof and chimneys as well as the classical porch.

A closer look at the porch and bay window--these are original stone features, and are pretty opulent for the time:

Harry Daugherty House (481 East Town Street)

1976 view of the exterior. (NRHP listing)

This house was largely hidden behind trees. It was built in 1904 as a simplified Chateauesque design, and the front porch is a mid-century alteration. Its original owner was Harry Daugherty, who was born in Washington Court House in 1860 and became a lawyer, eventually working his way up to United States Attorney General. However, in 1924, he was forced to resign and tried for conspiracy. He was acquitted, but the involvement with Warren G. Harding’s scandals forever ruined his reputation. Some other dubious distinctions of Daugherty’s life include his appointment of J. Edgar Hoover as assistant director of the FBI and his two refusals to serve on the Supreme Court. The house is used by an investment service today.

Topiary Park Crossing (497 East Town Street)

These are modern infill apartments and were completed in 2023. This would be considered a contemporary “intrusion” of the district’s character, just as the Gothic Revival garden apartments and Mid-Century Modern high-rise are. It naively attempts to respond to the Victorian character of the neighborhood, which I’ll acknowledge, but the scale is just wrong. It uses Queen Anne features (the tower and wall finishes) mixed with Italianate/Beaux-Arts ones (colonnades, hood-molded windows, pedimented balconies), which doesn’t make sense from a stylistic standpoint.

124 South Washington Avenue

This house borders Topiary Park and was built in 1869. It has very fine woodwork on the front facade, as seen on the roof gable and porch. I haven’t seen many Italianates with a similar symmetrical form, though.

Detail of the central bay, which projects from the walls slightly:

Its neighbors have been demolished for a parking lot. It was weird to look at a park without surrounding houses, unlike Schiller, Goodale, and Franklin Park.

195 South Washington Avenue

I’m not sure if this house is technically part of the district, but it’s a lower-quality example of Italianate architecture and in poor condition today. I was mainly interested in preserving it digitally, since it is surrounded by parking lots and probably not long for this world.

I’m sure this area used to be lined with similar houses:

Allen G. Thurman House (513 East Rich Street)

1889 view of the house, showing its original wood appearance and smaller size. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

This unusual, highly detailed Queen Anne house has quite the convoluted history, which I had to piece together from different sources. It was built in 1879. The first incarnation of the house had a large wrap-around porch, Eastlake woodwork on the gable, and wood shingles. In 1899, after Allen G.’s death, the house was renovated to give it a larger footprint. The exterior was re-clad in stone (I swear I heard somewhere that this was an early use of prefabricated concrete, but I haven’t seen it mentioned in any of the sources I used), and more eclectic architectural details were added.

Photo of the house after its alterations. (Columbus Navigator)

Thurman himself was a very significant individual, having an extensive political career. He was born in Virginia in 1813 but moved with his family to Chillicothe in 1819. In 1844, Thurman was elected to Ohio’s House of Representatives, and after his term ended he was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court, eventually serving as chief justice for four years of his 14-year term. In 1867, he ran for governor and narrowly lost to Rutherford B. Hayes by a margin of 3,000 votes. However, he became a United States senator in 1869, serving until 1881. He ran for vice president in 1888 as Grover Cleveland’s running mate, but Cleveland lost the election to Benjamin Harrison. Thurman had some very…divisive…beliefs, such as opposition to Black people’s right to vote and Reconstruction in the South. He died in 1895, and his son Allen W. lived in the house afterwards, who must have commissioned the house’s alterations.

1976 view of the exterior. (NRHP listing)

By 1976, many of the house’s ornamental details had been removed, such as the porch, tall chimneys, gable woodwork, and roof finials. It had been subdivided into apartments. Today, it is used as law offices.

A nice oblique view of the house today--it is still pretty heavily altered, but the more recent changes are higher quality and in better taste than the ones that took place before 1976:

Washington Avenue facade (the square brick area in the rear is an addition):

Whether it’s stone or concrete, the masonry has been painted a lighter shade of gray, which seems to be weathering and peeling. The carved details are still apparent, however.