The English House, home to the Columbus Junior League since 1988, sits on Franklin Avenue behind Town Street in a pre-streetcar neighborhood (the Civil War era) where rich and poor once lived in close proximity. The building’s restoration and modernization culminated a 136 year history as a prominent Columbus historic property.
The land on which the English House sits was once part of a larger property owned by Fernando Cortez Kelton, a local drygoods merchant, who built the Kelton House on East Town Street for his wife and six children in 1852.
In the early 1900's, the north portion of the property on Franklin Avenue was separated from the original and developed as three single family dwellings. The houses were then sold and control transferred from the Kelton Family. The Mingus Family lived in the west building for about 12 years until the Depression, when the property was lost through foreclosure. Soon after, Grace Kelton, the grand-daughter of Fernando Cortez Kelton, repurchased the three properties and other land on Franklin Avenue and Town Street, and established her nationally known Miller-Kelton Studio of Interior Design. In the 1950's, two of the buildings were joined together by interior designer Walter Morris, resulting in the appearance of a single large frame building you see today. Directly across the street, a brick building set more forward than the other houses, is a private residential home suspected to be an early school, built for children in the neighborhood where a tutor was hired to be the teacher. Look directly at the front and it is possible to discern where original doors were. The building is small but houses a swimming pool inside.
Upon Grace Kelton's death in 1975, her property was left in trust to The Columbus Foundation. At the encouragement of the Columbus Foundation, the Junior League of Columbus assumed responsibility for preserving, managing, and developing the Kelton House property as a historic center on July 4, 1976.
That same year, in response to a need for additional space for both the Junior League and the Kelton House Museum, the Junior League launched a capital campaign to rehabilitate the structures on Franklin Avenue. With the same wide-spread community support that made the Kelton House restoration possible, two of the original Franklin Avenue houses now serve as the headquarters of the Junior League of Columbus. The structure is dedicated to Marian and Walter English, major supporters and friends of the Junior League of Columbus.