Developers promoted large, treed lots in an urban setting
Monday, February 8, 2010 3:13 AM
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A decade ago, Jeff Lafever moved into a house and neighborhood that perfectly suit his vocation.
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 Jeff Lafever, director of the Columbus Historical Society, has been a resident of the Woodland Park neighborhood for a decade.
 Mansion Day School, in a home that includes 24 rooms and 15 fireplaces, draws students from across central Ohio.
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Lafever, director of the Columbus Historical Society, lives in a grand stucco and brick house built in 1906. His neighborhood is Woodland Park, one of the city's first upscale subdivisions.
He said the details of the old Hawthorne Park house and the history of the Near East Side neighborhood drew him in.
The original owners, Fred and Josephine Vercoe, chose several custom features, including large, interconnected rooms with 10-foot ceilings and Dutch arches along one side of the house. Vercoe ran a brokerage firm in the city.
Like others drawn to the neighborhood, Lafever and his partner have put a lot into their house.
"Some other people who live around here are doing a lot of work," he said. "They like the combination of a half-acre lot with an urban lifestyle."
Most of the homes built later in Woodland Park, which grew north of Broad Street to Maryland Avenue, are more modest and are on smaller lots.
But the grand old houses that represent a smaller percentage of the neighborhood brought the first residents to the area.
In 1904, advertisements told prospective residents that they could "Have all the advantages of the country with city improvements and only 10 minutes from High St."
There were sidewalks, water, gas, sewers and electric lights, as well as "plenty of fine forest trees and one of the best school districts in the city."
And, the ad went on to say, "The beauty of it grows upon you every time you come."
But it wasn't all pretty.
In the 1920s, deed restrictions were placed on properties to keep blacks from moving into the neighborhood, Lafever said.
That didn't stop black professionals and musicians from moving there by the 1940s.
"Wealthy African-Americans bought houses for cash and got around the restrictions," he said.
Today, a Woodland Avenue mansion now houses an elementary school serving many black children and is home to Dee James, the school's executive director. The Mansion Day School has operated for two decades.
James' school draws students from across the region, including Gahanna, Pickerington and Dublin, and is hosting a Harlem Renaissance Gala fundraiser on Saturday.
"I like the fact that in 20 minutes you can be anywhere in the city, and the Franklin Park is down the street," she said.
The building, which includes 24 rooms and 15 fireplaces, was built by William A. Miller. He was president of the H.C. Godman shoe company, which had four factories in Columbus and four in Lancaster, employing 3,000 in 1921 when Miller died.
Miller tore down an existing wood house on the property to build his statement house in 1904, Lafever said. He used imported materials including Italian tile and mahogany.
Miller's wife, Anna, was a philanthropist who opened the third floor for homeless children, James said.
She and her husband have called the 10,000-square-foot house home for 15 years.
Property records show that the Glenmont Home for Christian Scientists bought the property in 1934 and turned it into a nursing home.
Some of the other large houses in Woodland Park also were converted into nursing and group homes.
The neighborhood is home to East High School, the Martin Luther King Jr. branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, and the Elsie Ward branch of the YMCA.
University Hospital East is located just west of Taylor Avenue, the neighborhood's western boundary.
Those amenities and its proximity to Downtown and I-670 have helped lure others to the area.
T.J. Nagel and his fiancee, Annette Durbin, moved into a stone and red clapboard house on Parkwood Avenue about two years ago.
She used to live in Clintonville. He sold his house in Victorian Village.
"We both have a thing for old neighborhoods," said Nagel, who manages a Dairy Queen and works with Durbin at Oakland Nurseries while working toward a landscape horticulture degree at Ohio State University.
"We have five dogs. We wanted a big yard for our pets."
At first, he knew nothing about the neighborhood, and friends told the couple that they shouldn't move there, that it was a "little rough around the edges," Nagel said.
Other than a car break-in, it's been quiet, he said.
The two are planning a backyard wedding in October 2011.
"We plan on raising a family there, sell it for a million dollars and retire in 30 years," Nagel said. "We're in it for the long haul."
More information can be found at
WoodlandParkNA.commferenchik@dispatch.com
