1904 Lindenberg Mansion on East Broad Street
1234 E. Broad St, Columbus, OH
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Now headquarters of the Columbus Foundation; not a regular tour site. View exterior from Broad Street.
Access
Limited Access
Urban sidewalk along East Broad Street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · National Register of Historic Places · Frank Packard Architecture · Former Ohio Governor's Mansion · Columbus Foundation Headquarters
The Old Governor's Mansion stands at 1234 East Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio, on a stretch of mansions developed in the early twentieth century as the city's premier residential corridor. Architect Frank Packard, one of Ohio's leading designers of the period, completed the house in 1904 for industrialist Charles H. Lindenberg. The Colonial Revival composition with Neo-Georgian detailing presents a symmetrical brick facade, white columned portico, and a Palladian window above the entry.
The State of Ohio purchased the residence in 1919 and used it as the official Governor's Mansion from 1911 through 1957. Eight Ohio governors and their families occupied the building during that period, including James M. Cox, Frank B. Willis, and Frank Lausche. In 1957, the state transferred the official residence to a newer property in suburban Bexley donated by Charles and Janet Harris, leaving the East Broad Street mansion to take on a series of subsequent uses, including a private event venue, a restaurant, a salon, and the headquarters of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is currently the headquarters of the Columbus Foundation, the regional community foundation. The interior is not regularly open to the public, although the foundation hosts occasional events and tours. From the street, the house remains a clear example of early-twentieth-century Columbus residential architecture and a landmark of the East Broad Street corridor.
Sources
The folkloric accounts attached to the Old Governor's Mansion describe a recurring figure: an African American woman in a blue dress, identified in regional ghost-tour material as a household worker during the building's earliest decades. The figure is reported to walk the halls of the residence and is sometimes connected by storytellers to a fire that purportedly occurred at the mansion. Documentation of any such fire in the historical record of the property is not readily available, and the connection appears to come from oral tradition.
Secondary reports describe a sustained smell of burning hair on certain interior corridors and pictures that have moved or fallen from walls without a clear cause. These reports come primarily through Columbus paranormal-aggregator sites; named first-person accounts in published news or historical society sources are limited.
With the building serving as a private foundation headquarters and not generally accessible to the public, no investigation programming or ghost tour operates at the address. Visitors to Columbus interested in the haunted reputations of historic East Broad Street can pair an exterior view with the better-documented Thurber House nearby on East Broad.
View the 1904 Lindenberg Mansion from the public sidewalk along East Broad Street. The Colonial Revival residence served as the Ohio Governor's Mansion from 1911 to 1957 and is now the headquarters of the Columbus Foundation. The interior is not generally open to the public, though the foundation occasionally hosts events.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Columbus, OH
The Alpha Omicron Pi house is a sorority residence associated with Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The building has served as housing for the sorority chapter for extended periods, maintaining its institutional role within the university community.
Columbus, OH
The Kelton House was built in 1852 by dry goods merchant Fernando Cortez Kelton and his wife Sophia, passionate abolitionists who used the property as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Their son Oscar enlisted in the 95th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and was killed in Mississippi in 1864. After housing five generations of Keltons until 1975, the mansion was donated to the Junior League of Columbus and opened as a museum.
Peebles, OH
The Wickerham Inn is Adams County, Ohio's oldest brick home, built in 1800-1801 by Revolutionary War veteran Peter Wickerham as a tavern and stagecoach stop on Zane's Trace. The home served as a documented stop on the Underground Railroad and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It remains a private residence owned by Wickerham descendants.