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Central Ohio houses and bathrooms, era by era

Who shaped Central Ohio houses, era by era, and what each of them changed

Central Ohio houses were shaped by people and institutions whose names are on the record: immigrant tradesmen and quarrymen, architects and land developers, a decade of federal housing programs, a mayor who annexed, companies whose own filings date them, and a state legislature that left houses out of its building code for fifty years. Each is set out below with a date and the document that records it. Nobody counts who built most Central Ohio houses, so these are named, dated examples, not a market history.

Last updated September 2026 · National Register records and nominations, the Ohio preservation office's 2010 statewide survey, city and state agency records and three companies' own filings were read September 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What this page is, and what it is not

Nobody publishes a count of who built most Central Ohio houses, so everyone named below is named for one project, one subdivision or one company, each on a document that dates it: a National Register record or nomination, the Ohio preservation office's statewide survey, a city's or a state agency's own account, or a company's own filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Every statement carries the geography its source covers.

What was built and where it stands is on the styles page; what houses were built of is on the building page; the bathroom itself is on the bathroom page; how old the houses are is measured on the bathrooms by decade page.

The eraWho actedWhat changed
1840 to 1899South End immigrant tradesmen; the architects Yost and PackardBrick houses built by the neighborhood's own trades; then a named architectural partnership.
1907 to 1928The Columbus Plan Commission and City Planning Commission; Ben and King Thompson; Don Monroe CastoA first plan, a first zoning code, a Garden City suburb, a Grandview Avenue block.
1940 to 1951Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority; Defense Homes Corporation and Todd Tibbals; the National Housing Agency and Ivan Gore; LustronPublic housing, wartime subdivisions, a five-room house with one bathroom, a steel house.
1943 to 1970Building Industry Association of Central Ohio; Mayor Sensenbrenner; Huber Homes; the Wakefields and van FossenAnnexation for sewer and water, brick-faced tract houses, Rush Creek Village.
1955 to 2006The Ohio General Assembly and the Board of Building StandardsHouses left out of the state building code, then covered from May 27, 2006.
1970 to 2024The City of Dublin; M/I Homes; Dominion Homes; The New Albany Company; Mayor GintherOuter suburbs, homebuilders dated by their own filings, a proposed zoning rewrite.

The nineteenth century: trades, quarries and a partnership

The German Village Society says the neighborhood was platted in 1814 in the South End, developed mainly between 1840 and 1914, and was settled largely by German immigrants in the mid 1800s. Asked who built those houses, the Society answers with trades, not firms: bakers, stonecutters, storekeepers, carpenters, tanners, bricklayers and brewery workers. No source read for this page names an individual builder there.

The state geologist wrote in 1915 that quarrying this rock dates perhaps from the time of settlement, and that quarrying the Columbus limestone was by then one of the largest industries in Central Ohio.

SAH Archipedia says Joseph Warren Yost and Frank Packard formed a Columbus architectural partnership in 1892, and that Yost moved to New York in 1899, leaving Packard to acquire full interest. It calls them a partnership that helped shape the architectural character of Columbus, that publisher's phrase, and describes their seven years by robust masonry and richly executed ornamentation, in Berea sandstone from northern Ohio rather than the local limestone.

1900 to 1940: a plan, a garden suburb and a commercial block

The City of Columbus says a Plan Commission of architects, a landscape architect, a sculptor and a civic advisor, drawn from New York City, Rochester and Philadelphia, was formed in 1907, and prepared the first known plan for the city within a year. Its first City Planning Commission was organized in 1921 and its first zoning code and maps were adopted in 1923, and it was not until 1950 that a planning director was appointed and the ordinance comprehensively revised. The number and the passage date of that 1923 zoning ordinance are on the page on how Columbus came to inspect its houses.

The Ohio State Historic Preservation Office says the real estate developers Ben and King Thompson began planning and developing Upper Arlington in 1913, following Garden City design principles. The National Park Service's register record for the resulting Upper Arlington Historic District, listed in 1985, does not name them, so both names come from the preservation office.

The National Register's own database record for the Bank Block Building at 1255 to 1293 Grandview Avenue lists Don Monroe Casto in its Architects field, 1928 as its significant year, and commerce and community planning and development as its areas of significance; the underlying nomination narrative has not been digitized, so this page repeats the database's own fields rather than a confirmed account of his role.

1940 to 1951: the federal government becomes the developer

The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority completed Poindexter Village, a 400-unit low-rise apartment complex on the Near East Side, in 1940. The Ohio History Connection, which records it along with The Ohio State University, calls it the city's first affordable public housing project and one of the earliest in the nation.

In Worthington, the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office's statewide survey says the Colonial Hills subdivision was constructed by the federal Defense Homes Corporation during the early 1940s, that the Columbus architect Todd Tibbals designed nine house models for it, and that 200 houses were built over the project. It calls them noteworthy for the use of sheetrock manufactured by United States Gypsum in place of traditional plaster, on houses delivered as prefabricated kits by rail to the Potter Lumber Company. The same survey records a racial occupancy restriction, originating in a deed restriction of 1938, reproduced in the 1942 Defense Homes Corporation deed and in place until the Fair Housing Act of 1968 nullified such covenants.

In Columbus, the George Washington Carver Addition in Hanford Village has its own National Register nomination, which says the National Housing Agency prioritized 400 homes for African Americans in Columbus, that the project received tentative Federal Housing Administration approval in July of 1944, and that construction took place from 1945 to 1947. The Columbus builder and developer Ivan H. Gore built it, with 146 Cape Cod houses financed by Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance, on which the nomination and the state survey agree. Each house originally had a five-room configuration with two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and an eat-in kitchen. One bathroom, on the first floor, was the whole plan; what was in it is on the bathroom page.

The preservation office says the Lustron Corporation was established in 1947 as an offshoot of the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Product Company by Carl Strandlund, and that production began the next year in a one-million-square-foot former Curtiss-Wright plant beside the Columbus airport. It names the Chicago architects of the Esquire prototype, Morris Beckman and Roy Burton Blass; Ohio History Central describes two-foot-square enameled-steel panels bolted to a steel framework set on a concrete slab. Both Ohio History Connection publications say a foreclosure and liquidation sale was held in 1951, not 1950.

Counts of how many were made vary by verb, not only by number. A National Register nomination for a Lustron house says the Columbus plant shipped about 2,680 houses between April 1948 and May 1950; the preservation office's 2010 survey separately gives approximately 2,680 constructed, of which approximately 1,500 currently survive; and Ohio History Central says nearly 2,500 homes were sold. Shipped, constructed and sold are three different counts, kept apart here rather than averaged. Those counts are national.

1943 to 1970: an association, an annexation policy and two kinds of builder

The Building Industry Association of Central Ohio says on its own site that it has represented homebuilders and developers in the region since 1943.

The postwar shape of Columbus was decided by annexation. The City of Columbus says M. E. Sensenbrenner served as mayor for an unprecedented fourteen years and that the aggressive annexation policy pursued under his leadership let the city avoid what it calls suburban land strangulation. Its own Comprehensive Plan states the mechanism without naming him: the prevailing motivation for annexation, by developers in suburban fringe areas and by individual homeowners, has been to obtain sewer and water services. So a house with a Columbus mailing address may sit on a street laid out under a township's rules and annexed afterward.

The preservation office's survey says Huber Homes, a Dayton-area builder, went on to build several thousand houses in other cities such as Columbus, with brick facing a trademark of its houses. The same office says Rush Creek Village in Worthington was begun in 1956 by Richard and Martha Wakefield working with the architect Theodore van Fossen on Frank Lloyd Wright's design principles, and calls it recognized for its outstanding architectural quality; the National Park Service's record for the historic district gives the same architects and the significant years 1954 and 1956.

Who wrote the rules for a house in Ohio

The Ohio Board of Building Standards' own history records what the state did about houses, which for fifty years was to leave them out of its code. It says the legislature authorized a state building code by administrative rule in 1955 and named the Board as the responsible agency, and that the state legislature specifically exempted 1-, 2-, 3-family dwellings and agricultural buildings. Until 2005 the Board's whole duty about houses was to compile and publish, in the form of a model code, rules pertaining to one-family, two-family, and three-family dwelling houses that any municipal corporation, township, or county may incorporate into its building code: a code local governments could adopt, not a state code.

The Board adopted the BOCA model codes as the Ohio Basic Building Codes on September 29, 1978, with an effective date of July 1, 1979, and says those model codes were subsequently replaced by the International Code Council family from the mid 1990s through the early 2000s. Its own adoption table puts that change at the entry effective January 1, 2002, based on the 2000 International Building Code. That table covers building, mechanical and plumbing only, with no residential row in it at all.

Amended Substitute House Bill 175 of the 125th General Assembly, short-titled the Statewide Uniform Residential Building Code and effective May 27, 2005, was enacted to establish a state residential building code. It struck the model-code duty and replaced it with an instruction that the board shall adopt rules establishing that code as the state residential building code. Section 3(C) says the rules the Board adopts under it shall have no force or effect until one year after that date, which is May 27, 2006, the earliest prior effective date printed on every chapter of the Residential Code of Ohio at the state's own code site. Which edition that code is on now, and what it asks of a bathroom, is on the Ohio code page.

The nonresidential Ohio Building Code's administration rule, by contrast, carries prior effective dates beginning July 7, 1969. A Central Ohio house older than 2006 was built under whatever its local jurisdiction enforced, or under nothing. Which rules were actually in force in Columbus, the Franklin County townships and the surrounding suburbs, and when, is set out on the page about which building code a house was built under.

And the rules a neighborhood wrote for itself

The German Village Society says it was created in 1960, the year after Frank Fetch restored a cottage on Wall Street. The City of Columbus says the German Village Commission and the German Village Historic District were established by Ordinance 976-60 and 1221-60 in 1960, and that the commission reviews and approves exterior changes to buildings in the district. A different instrument followed: the Society says the Columbus City Council added Chapter 3325 to the Columbus Zoning Code in 1963, which it says gave the commission design review authority.

1970 to 2024: outer suburbs, public companies and a zoning rewrite

The City of Dublin says that in the 1970s Dublin began to transform from a rural village into a suburban business center, and names three causes: Ashland Chemical's decision to build there, the decision to put a Dublin ramp on the I-270 outerbelt, and the development of the Muirfield Village Golf Club and residential community. Muirfield Village is given no date. Dublin officially became a city in August 1987.

Two Columbus homebuilders of the period are on the public record through their own filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. M/I Homes tells the Securities and Exchange Commission, by the company's own filing, that it commenced homebuilding activities in 1976, and its market table gives Columbus, Ohio as the division where operations began that year. Dominion Homes told the commission that it traced its homebuilding roots to 1952, when its founder Donald A. Borror built his first house in Columbus; that it was organized as an Ohio corporation in October 1993 as the Borror Corporation; that it went public in March 1994; and that it took the Dominion Homes name in May 1997. In its last annual report, for 2007, it said it delivered approximately 15.8 percent of all new homes in the Central Ohio market, citing an annual housing report by an unaffiliated Columbus real estate service.

The New Albany Company was formed in the mid 1980s by Les Wexner and Jack Kessler; its own site gives two different founding years in two places, so neither is printed here. The company says its master plan's residential focus promotes what it calls a classic American architectural style based on 500-year-old Georgian Palladianism, achieved in part through design guidelines.

The City of Columbus says Mayor Andrew J. Ginther introduced a proposal in April 2024 to modernize what it calls its 70-year-old zoning code, creating six new mixed use zones on 12,300 parcels of land along the city's busiest streets.

What was made nearby

The first is stone. The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board says construction of the Ohio Statehouse actively began on July 4, 1839 with the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone and that the building would be completed much later, in 1861; that prison labor from the Ohio Penitentiary built the foundation and the ground floors; and that objections from skilled tradesmen changed the hiring practices for the rest of the work. It is masonry, largely of Columbus limestone taken from a quarry on the west banks of the Scioto River, which the state's geological survey and Ohio History Central both confirm. That survey also says the Columbus and Delaware Limestones were used extensively for home building in central Ohio and in the counties bordering Lake Erie during the early 1800s. The state geologist's 1915 bulletin rated it excellent for foundations and high grade for sills and caps, proven in hundreds of Columbus buildings, and allowed that for the walls of residences and business structures it has all requisites, except that of pleasure to the eye.

The second is insulation: Owens Corning tells the Securities and Exchange Commission, by the company's own filing, that it was founded in 1938, is based in Toledo, Ohio, and makes the fiberglass insulation sold under its own pink brand.

The third is tile, with a caution. The Zanesville Museum of Art says Zanesville, about 55 miles east of Columbus, was the industrial center for art, utilitarian and industrial pottery production by the 1920s, and names the American Encaustic Tiling Company and the Mosaic Tile Company among its large manufacturers. Nothing read for this page gives either company a founding or closing year, and nothing ties their tile to a Central Ohio bathroom, so this page does not say it did. Those companies' own founding and closing dates are on the page about what Ohio made for houses. What each material is and when it was used is on the building page; when indoor plumbing reached Ohio houses is on the Ohio bathroom page, and the systems common in each decade's houses now are on the shower systems page.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

Common questions

When did Ohio first have a statewide building code for houses?

Ohio's own residential code took force on May 27, 2006. The Board of Building Standards says the legislature authorized a state building code by administrative rule in 1955 and specifically exempted one-, two- and three-family dwellings and agricultural buildings, so for fifty years the state code did not reach houses. Amended Substitute House Bill 175 of the 125th General Assembly, effective May 27, 2005, was enacted to establish a state residential building code, and its Section 3(C) held the new rules with no force for one year. Every chapter of the Residential Code of Ohio carries May 27, 2006 as its earliest prior effective date.

Who developed Upper Arlington, Ohio, and when?

The Ohio State Historic Preservation Office's statewide survey says the real estate developers Ben and King Thompson began planning and developing Upper Arlington in 1913, following Garden City design principles. That office is the source of both names, and it is worth saying so, because the National Park Service's National Register record for the resulting Upper Arlington Historic District, listed in 1985, does not name them at all. A date for the start of a plan is not a date for any one house. Houses in Upper Arlington run from 1920s originals to much later work on land brought in afterward.

Who built the Lustron houses, and where were they made?

The Ohio State Historic Preservation Office says the Lustron Corporation was established in 1947 as an offshoot of the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Product Company by Carl Strandlund, and that production began the next year in a one-million-square-foot former Curtiss-Wright plant beside the Columbus airport. The same survey names the Chicago architects of the Esquire prototype, Morris Beckman and Roy Burton Blass, and describes a two-bedroom ranch house of enameled steel panels bolted to a steel framework set on a concrete slab. Both Ohio History Connection publications say a foreclosure and liquidation sale was held in 1951.

Who built Poindexter Village in Columbus, Ohio?

The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority completed Poindexter Village, a 400-unit low-rise apartment complex on the Near East Side, in 1940. Two publishers record it, the Ohio History Connection and The Ohio State University, and the Ohio State account adds that the project was funded by the federal United States Housing Authority. The Ohio History Connection calls it the city's first affordable public housing project and one of the earliest in the nation, which is that publisher's own phrase. No source read for this page names an architect for it or gives the housing authority's own founding year.

Which Columbus homebuilders are public companies, and when did they start?

Two are on the public record through their own filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. M/I Homes says it commenced homebuilding activities in 1976, and its own market table gives Columbus, Ohio as the division where operations began that year. Dominion Homes said it traced its homebuilding roots to 1952, when its founder Donald A. Borror built his first house in Columbus, that it was organized as an Ohio corporation in October 1993 under the name Borror Corporation, that it completed an initial public offering in March 1994, and that it took the Dominion Homes name in May 1997. Its last annual report was for 2007.

Who reviews exterior work on a house in German Village, Columbus?

The German Village Commission does. The City of Columbus says the commission and the German Village Historic District were established by Ordinance 976-60 and 1221-60 in 1960, and that the commission reviews and approves exterior changes to buildings in the district. The German Village Society says a different instrument followed in 1963, when the Columbus City Council added Chapter 3325 to the Columbus Zoning Code, which the Society says gave the commission design review authority. The city adds that the commission's guidelines were adopted in 1989 and that certificates of appropriateness are issued under Columbus City Code chapters 3116 and 3119.

Who built the Carver Addition in Hanford Village, Columbus?

The Columbus builder and developer Ivan H. Gore. The district's National Register nomination says the National Housing Agency prioritized 400 homes for African Americans in Columbus, that the project received tentative Federal Housing Administration approval in July of 1944, and that housing construction took place from 1945 to 1947. The nomination and the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office's survey agree that 146 Cape Cod houses were built and that Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance financed them. Each house originally had a five-room configuration with two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and an eat-in kitchen.

Where did the limestone in old Columbus foundations come from?

From quarries beside the Scioto River, close to where it was used. The Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board says the Ohio Statehouse is largely Columbus limestone taken from a quarry on the west banks of the Scioto River, and the state's geological survey and Ohio History Central agree. The survey also says that during the early 1800s the Columbus and Delaware Limestones were used extensively for home building in central Ohio and in the counties bordering Lake Erie. The state geologist wrote in 1915 that the stone was excellent for foundations and high grade for sills and caps, proven in hundreds of Columbus buildings.

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