It’s just a home tour. Lots of neighborhoods have them.
But for Columbia Tusculum, that little pocket of architectural Victoriana tucked away on Cincinnati’s near east side, the Historic Homes Tour on October 12 is more like a coming-of-age party.
It’s not that Columbia Tusculum has changed radically since its last home tour in 2005. For that matter, the community’s outward image has remained remarkably unchanged from what it was in the late 19th Century; towering hillsides and gracious lanes lined with row after row of elegant, eye-catching homes.
But there have been changes. Palpable ones. The waves of newcomers that have poured into Columbia Tusculum in recent years are younger, savvier and more professional than any who have come before them. And following close behind them has been the beginning of a commercial renaissance that leaders have talked about for decades.
“It’s finally taking off,” says Steve Penker, 38, who started buying property in Columbia Tusculum a decade ago. He’s had his share of successes. He’s developed a few lots into pricey townhomes. He leases another to Starbucks.
But the long-awaited boom that everyone promised? Never happened. That didn’t deter Penker, who was convinced it was imminent.
He recalls a trip to Nashville in the mid-1990s. As he drove into downtown from the western suburbs, he saw community after community where the prices had skyrocketed.
“I saw all the cars driving through – but you just couldn’t buy any property there. It was all too expensive. It was already developed. So when I came back to Cincinnati, I realized it was the same thing in Columbia Tusculum.”
Except for the development, of course. But, thanks to main arteries like Columbia Parkway and Delta, there were tens of thousands of cars passing through every day.
“I remember that when Starbucks was looking at my property, they weren’t just interested in the number of cars that drove by. They were interested in the types of cars that came by.”
New cars. Expensive cars. Lavish cars. People from Indian Hill, Mariemont, Madeira, Terrace Park, Anderson – people with money. And once they left Fairfax or the bottom of the Beechmont hill, there was nowhere to spend that money except Columbia Tusculum.
Planting roots in CT
When Ran Mullins and Suzanne Beane began looking for a home, they didn’t consider Columbia Tusculum an option. Mullins, the founder and chief creative officer of Metaphor Studios and an ardent supporter of inner-city life, lived in Over-the-Rhine. Beane, Metaphor’s CEO and chief strategy officer, had two young children and lived in Mt. Lookout.
They understood that finding a neighborhood that suited both their tastes could be incredibly complicated.
“I didn’t even think she would consider this neighborhood,” says Mullins, 38. He knew she would be drawn to the architecture. But Columbia Tusculum had – and still has – its scruffier side. Mixed in with the attorneys, designers, musicians and writers, you’ll find a small but steady stream of people making their way on foot to shops that do a sizeable trade in cheap beer and cheap wine.
But none of that troubled Beane, 39. The location proved to be ideal – easy access to Walnut Hills High School, where her son goes and just a 6-minute drive to Metaphor’s downtown office.
But more important to her was the famously tolerant attitude of the people who live there.
“It feels like me,” says Beane. “It has the grooviness that I like in a neighborhood. And everyone seems to be at peace with one another.”
It’s that quality that people keep coming back to when they try to describe what makes Columbia Tusculum different from other neighborhoods. They talk about the houses, of course. The concentration of restored, wood-framed, Victorian structures is unparalleled in the area. And they talk about the ease of getting anywhere on the east side. There’s Alms Park, too, at the top of Tusculum Avenue, and Lunken Airport with its running/biking trail.
But what really separates Columbia Tusculum from other neighborhoods is that indescribable something that makes this decidedly citified community feel like an incredibly progressive small town.
“It’s a lot like Mt. Lookout, where I used to live,” says Fran Santangelo, who recently opened BeneFITS Studio, a health and wellness boutique in Columbia Tusculum. “But this has a freer spirit.”
It’s not that Columbia Tusculum is devoid of community squabbles. With much of the neighborhood listed on both city and national historic registers, any exterior design alteration is likely to generate intense controversy.
But at the same time, Columbia Tusculum is even better defined by its street parties and eccentric gardens and neighborly largesse.
All of that has been a wonderful discovery for Santangelo, 29. Raised in Hyde Park, she probably would have started her business there or in Mt. Lookout if those areas weren’t already so highly developed.
“The prices for space there were astronomical,” says Santangelo. “It just wasn’t viable for a new business.”
But Columbia Tusculum is still relatively affordable. And, once again, it is blessed with having all that traffic driving through every day. But as other small businesses – failed businesses – have discovered, having lots of traffic isn’t enough. The cars have to stop. And most of them, other than those that stop at Starbucks, drive straight through.
But that is about to change. With the development of the 80,000 sq. ft. mixed-use Columbia Square project at Delta and Columbia Parkway, there figures to be another enormous draw to the neighborhood. And a powerful occasion for people to park their cars and get out.
“This area is about to be booming,” says Santangelo. “The rich history. The new development. The mix of empty nesters and 30-somethings looking for homes that stand out from what everybody else has. The combination reminds me of Lincoln Park in Chicago. I want to be here when the boom happens.”
It doesn’t qualify as a boom just yet, mind you. Retail life along Columbia Parkway is still fairly sparse. But there are signs of life. Bill Hulsizer, 47, recently opened Tusculum Massage next to Allyn’s, an everything-to-everybody restaurant that is a longtime neighborhood anchor. And metal sculptor Nicholas Yust is about to expand a property on Eastern Avenue for a new studio. Other businesses have popped up elsewhere along Eastern Avenue and Riverside Drive, a restaurant here, a salon there.
Now the tough part will be trying to maintain a balance between the old and the new, the quirky with the overtly commercial.
“I don’t have any objection to the Columbia Square development,” says April Mann, 41, a new media specialist who moved from Clifton Heights with her attorney husband and two small children four years ago. “But I’d also like to see the old business district along Eastern Avenue come back, too. A beautiful bakery, maybe, or a beautiful restaurant.”
There was a time that Columbia Tusculum had all that and more; a movie theater, pharmacists, professional offices and several grocery stores. But like so many small shopping areas, it couldn’t compete with supermarkets and malls and big box stores.
“What I don’t want to see is the neighborhood get dumbed down," says Mann. "I think our neighborhood has something that the rest of the city doesn’t have – an old, peaceful way about it. It’s quirkier. More personal. It’s a little more hand-made."
“We knew we would like it here. But we had no idea that our neighbors would be so sharp, so nice, so available. Everybody looks out for each other. I’ve never had that experience in my life – ever – even when I was a kid. I think it’s totally the painted houses. It takes the right kind of person to want to live here. People who want to live in beige houses aren’t going to want to live in this neighborhood.”
The Columbia Tusculum Historic Homes Tour.
1-6 p.m. Sunday, October 12.
Tickets: $15. Online at www.columbiatusculum.org, at Facebook (search for Columbia Tusculum) or at Stanley’s Pub (323 Stanley Ave.), Allyn’s (3538 Columbia Parkway) or Tostado’s Grill (3500 Eastern Ave.). Tickets will also be available on the day of the event at the Carnegie Center, 3738 Eastern Ave.
David Lyman is an arts and marketing writer who lives in Columbia Tusculum. He has written for the Detroit Free Press, The Henry Ford, Cincy, Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky, the University of Michigan and the Golden Pheasant Noodle & Fortune Cookie Company.
Photographs taken by Scott Beseler
Various homes one might see on the house tour on Eastern Avenue, Tusculum Avenue and Morris Place
Ran Mullins, Suzanne Beane, Lily Beane, Sam Beane
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