Neighborhood has similar look, nightlife while offering lower-priced homes, fewer restrictions
By Mark Ferenchik
As you drive through a neighborhood south of Downtown on your way to a trendy restaurant or familiar nightspot, its brick streets and century-old homes might lead you to believe that you’re in German Village.
Then again, you might be in Schumacher Place.
Schumacher Place might resemble the village to the west, but there are differences. For example, houses cost less, and there are no tough restrictions on what color you paint them or what kind of windows you can put in.
Also hidden away in the neighborhood is an auto museum, where collectors Steve Wagner and Mark Hagans store their classic cars, not to mention vintage gas pumps, service-station signs, scores of old license plates and other neatly arranged auto memorabilia.
The two had been showing their cars, including Packards, Ford Edsels and Chryslers, by appointment in the nondescript E. Kossuth Street building. But they decided this summer to open it to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. on Sundays through Dec. 18.
“Steve just thought it would be nice, something constant,” Hagans said.
Wagner thought it would attract other car enthusiasts. But they found it draws out-of-towners who stumble upon it after visiting Schmidt’s or the Thurman Cafe or other nearby attractions, Wagner said.
“They drive by and go, ‘What’s this?’ ” Wagner said.
The same might be said for Schumacher Place.
Neither Hagans, an auto dealer who lives in Clintonville, nor Wagner, a mortgage-loan officer from the nearby Merion Village neighborhood, was specifically looking for real estate in that neighborhood.
But when they came across the low-key, 4,200-square-foot building, they liked what they saw.
“This seemed to be a lot more residential and kind of undiscovered,” Hagans said. “We want to fit in and be something that adds to the neighborhood, not detract from it.”
According to the civic association, the name of the neighborhood comes from the Schumacher family, who owned and operated a dairy business there in the 1800s. Their cows grazed in the neighborhood’s southeast section, between Sycamore and Whittier streets.
It was home to a slaughter yard for cattle, pigs and horses, creating a stench that made the surrounding area unsuitable for houses. Several tanneries supplied Columbus’ buggy industry.
The Columbus Generals professional baseball team played in a field on Whittier Street where the Giant Eagle store is now. Children also played there, their games occasionally interrupted by a pig that got loose on its way to the slaughter yard.
Today, the neighborhood is a comfortable array of two-story wood-frame and brick houses. In the fall, breezes rustle through the many trees that line the streets, where houses are fronted by picket and wrought-iron fences and tidy flower beds.
The neighborhood attracted Gary Stroud, a Texas native who moved to Columbus in 2006.
Stroud is the program chairman of human-resources management at nearby Franklin University. He can walk to work.
“Schumacher Place is one of those lost jewels. People don’t know about it,” said Stroud, 61, who leads the neighborhood’s civic association.
“We have restaurants, bars — everything in walking distance. I will get home on Friday and not get in the car all weekend.”
That’s what Kevin Caskey was hoping for when he opened his Skillet restaurant at 410 E. Whittier St. two years ago.
Neighborhood residents often walk to sample Caskey’s “rustic urban” food that includes an “urban egg sandwich” and macaroni and pulled pork.
Caskey, 48, moved from Lancaster to Schumacher Place, which he calls a “city pocket neighborhood” with a small-town feel.
That also appealed to Steve Sonderman, who grew up near Westerville but tired of suburban life. Sonderman, a 24-year-old substitute teacher, rents from a roommate who owns a house on E. Kossuth Street.
“I feel like I’m basically in German Village,” he said.
Schumacher Place businesses try to capitalize on that perception.
The “German Village” Giant Eagle is actually in Schumacher Place, Stroud said.
Even the Yellow Pages ad for the venerable Plank’s Cafe and Pizzeria says it’s “on Parsons in German Village.”
It’s in a neighborhood still kind of undiscovered, but maybe not for long.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
As you drive through a neighborhood south of Downtown on your way to a trendy restaurant or familiar nightspot, its brick streets and century-old homes might lead you to believe that you’re in German Village.
Then again, you might be in Schumacher Place.
Schumacher Place might resemble the village to the west, but there are differences. For example, houses cost less, and there are no tough restrictions on what color you paint them or what kind of windows you can put in.
Also hidden away in the neighborhood is an auto museum, where collectors Steve Wagner and Mark Hagans store their classic cars, not to mention vintage gas pumps, service-station signs, scores of old license plates and other neatly arranged auto memorabilia.
The two had been showing their cars, including Packards, Ford Edsels and Chryslers, by appointment in the nondescript E. Kossuth Street building. But they decided this summer to open it to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. on Sundays through Dec. 18.
“Steve just thought it would be nice, something constant,” Hagans said.
Wagner thought it would attract other car enthusiasts. But they found it draws out-of-towners who stumble upon it after visiting Schmidt’s or the Thurman Cafe or other nearby attractions, Wagner said.
“They drive by and go, ‘What’s this?’ ” Wagner said.
The same might be said for Schumacher Place.
Neither Hagans, an auto dealer who lives in Clintonville, nor Wagner, a mortgage-loan officer from the nearby Merion Village neighborhood, was specifically looking for real estate in that neighborhood.
But when they came across the low-key, 4,200-square-foot building, they liked what they saw.
“This seemed to be a lot more residential and kind of undiscovered,” Hagans said. “We want to fit in and be something that adds to the neighborhood, not detract from it.”
According to the civic association, the name of the neighborhood comes from the Schumacher family, who owned and operated a dairy business there in the 1800s. Their cows grazed in the neighborhood’s southeast section, between Sycamore and Whittier streets.
It was home to a slaughter yard for cattle, pigs and horses, creating a stench that made the surrounding area unsuitable for houses. Several tanneries supplied Columbus’ buggy industry.
The Columbus Generals professional baseball team played in a field on Whittier Street where the Giant Eagle store is now. Children also played there, their games occasionally interrupted by a pig that got loose on its way to the slaughter yard.
Today, the neighborhood is a comfortable array of two-story wood-frame and brick houses. In the fall, breezes rustle through the many trees that line the streets, where houses are fronted by picket and wrought-iron fences and tidy flower beds.
The neighborhood attracted Gary Stroud, a Texas native who moved to Columbus in 2006.
Stroud is the program chairman of human-resources management at nearby Franklin University. He can walk to work.
“Schumacher Place is one of those lost jewels. People don’t know about it,” said Stroud, 61, who leads the neighborhood’s civic association.
“We have restaurants, bars — everything in walking distance. I will get home on Friday and not get in the car all weekend.”
That’s what Kevin Caskey was hoping for when he opened his Skillet restaurant at 410 E. Whittier St. two years ago.
Neighborhood residents often walk to sample Caskey’s “rustic urban” food that includes an “urban egg sandwich” and macaroni and pulled pork.
Caskey, 48, moved from Lancaster to Schumacher Place, which he calls a “city pocket neighborhood” with a small-town feel.
That also appealed to Steve Sonderman, who grew up near Westerville but tired of suburban life. Sonderman, a 24-year-old substitute teacher, rents from a roommate who owns a house on E. Kossuth Street.
“I feel like I’m basically in German Village,” he said.
Schumacher Place businesses try to capitalize on that perception.
The “German Village” Giant Eagle is actually in Schumacher Place, Stroud said.
Even the Yellow Pages ad for the venerable Plank’s Cafe and Pizzeria says it’s “on Parsons in German Village.”
It’s in a neighborhood still kind of undiscovered, but maybe not for long.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
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