This lovely home at 80 West Cooke Rd was originally built in 1925 for Lulu & Carl Cooke. The Cookes owned it for 40 years, and the house has only had 4 owners since it was built. Fortunately the home’s original character and charm has been maintained throughout the years.

I believe I’ve passed the house many times without noticing it, and suspect its lines were obscured by foliage until recently. What a gem it is!

The house is in the Rosemary housing division, developed by Charles Johnson in 1923 and named after his mother.

As a side note, the Mediterranean Revival style–so unusual in Clintonville–reminds me of the old Zimmerman home that used to be located at the NW corner of Henderson and Olentangy River Roads.

There are also examples of that style at 44 West Jeffrey Place (left photo below) and 223 West Beechwold Blvd (right photo below) in Old Beechwold. An historic inventory for 44 West Jeffrey can be found here. 223 West Beechwold seems to have had the address “4923 West Beechwold” and may have been designed by architect Frank Kinzig, according to the Old Beechwold Historic District Nomination.

My friend Nancy Campbell tells me that in the 1920s, there was a lot of interest in exotic styles for houses, usually attributed to the young men who came back from WWI. Having seen more of the world, they were interested in Tudor, Mediterranean, Mission, Chateauesque (French) styles. The Sears and Aladdin kit houses, though offering predominantly Craftsman or “plain” styles, also offered the others. These three houses were more upscale versions of an interesting mix of styles. According to Virginia McAlester’s book, A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America’s Domestic Architecture, tile roofs were used in Spanish Eclectic, Mission, Italian Renaissance, and Prairie styles. The Cooke Rd. house seems somewhat Tudor, with the “musicians’ balcony” overlooking the living room.

[Real estate listing & photos courtesy of Judy Minister; historic architecture information from Nancy Campbell.]

include the Smiths, Websters, Coes, Whipps, Hunts, Wilsons, Bucks, and the Cookes. John Buck acquired land around Henderson and High early on, and then sold some of the land to Chauncey Cooke. Cooke in turn donated the land to the Clinton Township in 1842 to be used as a school.

Another one of the first families of Clintonville was the Cooke family. According to the family’s history, Roswell Cooke (1764-1827) came to Ohio with his wife and five children in 1800 from Connecticut. His two eldest sons, Rodney and Chauncey, took up land 6 miles north of the state house, their farms adjoining (in the vicinity of Cooke Road and North High Street). They cleared the land and both erected “houses out of round, unhewn logs, with puncheon floors and primitive fire places, with mud-and-stick chimneys.” The brothers lived the rest of their lives on these farms. Family history states that in 1827 they constructed one of the first grist and saw mills on the Olentangy River, which later became known as the Whipp and then as the Weisheimer Mill. They also operated a distillery. (Photo courtesy of Terry Miller.)

Rodney’s son, H.C. Cooke, was born in 1825, and took up residence on the old Cooke homestead at 4243 North High Street. Over time H.C. amassed 300 acres. He was a successful businessman, including in the stock business, and then owned the firm Cooke, Grant & Cooke, contractors in the construction of heavy masonry for railroad and other bridges. He was one of the officers of the Worthington & Columbus streetcar line. (You can click on this map to enlarge it.) (Photo courtesy of Carl Cooke.)

Just a bit more background information. The current name of the company Henry C. Cooke founded is the Fritz-Rumer-Cooke Co., Inc. They are still in business. The Secretary of State’s website states that one of their prior names was the Fritz Rumer Cooke Grant Company, changed to Fritz-Rumer-Cooke Co., Inc. in 1918. The company’s website states that it was founded in 1879 and incorporated in Ohio in 1911, and is still managed by descendants of the Cooke family. (This information courtesy of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.)

Roswell Cooke came to Ohio from Connecticut in 1800 with his wife and five children. The two oldest sons, Chauncey and Rodney, took up adjoining land in the vicinity of today’s Henderson Road and North High Street. Son Rodney (1793-1833) married Laura Cowles and together they had nine children: Esther (married to L. J. Weaver), Roswell (m. Lorinda Skeels), Helen (m. John Good), Rosalia (m. John Webster), Rachel (m. William Buck), Laura (m. Lester Roberts), Rodney Romoaldo (m. Chloe Williams), Demon, and Henry C. (m. Abigail Taylor).

Rodney’s son Rodney was a teacher and a farmer, and he served in the Civil War (Company G, 57th OVI). He was honorably discharged but returned from the war an invalid. Broken down in health, he was largely incapacitated for performing manual labor on his farm. He died in 1886, having been confined to his bed 11 years. A bit more biographical information can be found in A Centennial Biographical History of the City of Columbus and Franklin County Ohio (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1901) pp. 248-252, excerpted here.

In 1842, Clinton Township School District 1 acquired land at Henderson and High Street from Chauncey Cooke, and in 1878, built a brick school building on the southwest corner. The building was used both as a school and for worship services by various denominations. In 1920, the district deeded the school to the Methodist Church, and the Maple Grove Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. It was at the time the only church between Clintonville and Worthington. (Photo courtesy of the Ron Ohsner family)

Cooke family members married Buck, Armstrong, Hess, Maize, Webster, and Brown family members. The Cooke family held a series of family reunions from the late 1890s through the first decade of the 1910s, and maintained a log and minutes of their get-together. (Photo courtesy of Carl Cooke)

Another noted family in the vicinity of Henderson and High Street was the Armstrong family. Henry C. Cooke’s daughter Flora had married Llewellyn Armstrong. This is their house on the corner of Cooke Lane and High Street. A caption by Lulu Pearle Browne (Ohsner) also states “Clem Cooke [a son of Albert C. Cooke] born here—when first built Al and Lulu Cooke lived here.” (Photo courtesy of the Ron Ohsner family)

Alice Cooke Hess was the daughter of Henry C. Cooke, and worked for some years as a school teacher at the Clinton Heights Avenue School. She married Charles Hess, the great grandson of pioneer, Balser Hess. (The Hess family land formed Union Cemetery.) Alice and her husband eventually lived in the large house built by Henry Cooke at Deland and North High Street shown in my book and on this web site. This is her grave stone in Union Cemetery. (Photo courtesy of Terry W. Miller.)

Alice Cooke (daughter of Henry C. Cooke) married Charles Hess, a great grandson of Clinton Township pioneer Balser Hess. Alice had been a teacher at Clinton School. The Cooke-Hess house and farm were located just south of the corner of Henderson and High between Deland and West Cooke Roads on the west side of High Street, opposite the Ed Cooke home. The house was originally the home of Henry and Abigail Cooke. (Photo courtesy of the Ron Ohsner family)

The bottom photo is a picture of the Hess family on their farm; Henry is supposedly in the middle. (Photo courtesy of Carl Cooke.)

Here’s a picture of High Street looking north. Lulu Pearle Browne (Ohsner) and her dog are at the entrance to the driveway dividing the Browne and Al Cooke homes—presently the corner of West Cooke Road. The Aldrich house is on the left and Maple Grove church is in the center left. (Photo courtesy of the Ron Ohsner family)