Westbrook

A 15-minute drive northeast of downtown Columbus with convenience to one of the largest shopping meccas in the Columbus area, Westbrook has a small pocket of older homes that are over a century old. Part of Westbrook is industrial and is home to the distribution center for Wasserstrom, one of the largest distributors of food service products.

Easton Town Center has over 1.7 million square feet of office and retail space and nearly 200 shops and restaurants. Since it opened in 1999, it instantly became one of Columbus's most popular tourist attractions. Nordstrom, Crate & Barrel and Louis Vuitton are just some stores to choose from—about a 10-minute drive to the east.

Most of the homes are along the eastern and northern edge of the neighborhood along Westerville and Ferris Roads and are on lots that are at least an acre. A farmhouse from 1900 sits on over three acres of land and has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. A 1925 Cape Cod is on over an acre of land and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms—the home prices in Westbrook range from $100,000 to $300,000. The average price per square foot is $171; the floor plans are between 1,000 and 2,300 square feet. Residents of Westbrook don’t have far to visit a post office to mail a package. The facility is on Innis Road in the southern part of the neighborhood.

Whether it’s a few things for your home at Family Dollar or picking up grocery items native to various parts of the world at Saraga International Marketplace, you can find it as part of the Northern Lights Shopping Center on Cleveland Avenue. Sophina’s Café, in the shopping center, specializes in Somali and East African food. They get great reviews from their customers on their goat meat served on rice or spaghetti. For dessert, make sure to stop by Clown Cones & Confections. You’ll notice that inside, there are many images of clowns on the walls and ceiling, along with a wide variety of ice cream flavors and retro candy. For something more adult, visit the Mad Moon Cider Taproom, which specializes in producing hard cider from locally grown apples. All their finished product is gluten-free, and their taproom is open on Saturdays from 2 to 9 pm.

To fulfill the needs of the residents of Westbrook, St. Stephen’s Community House on 17th Avenue is only a four-mile drive to the south and is around to provide services that residents might need, such as access to fresh food. St. Stephen’s Marketing and Development Director Madison Massey says their most popular service is the free food market. “We are a fresh market, which means we partner with Mid-Ohio Food Collective and get three deliveries a week of fresh produce. We are open Monday through Friday, and people can shop the market once a week.” It’s open to anybody in the Columbus area.

Getting out and stretching your legs is easy and convenient. All you have to do is cross Westerville Road to Champions Golf Course, which started in 1922 as only a nine-hole course. It was re-designed by famed golf course designer Robert Trent Jones and expanded to 18 holes in 1948. Today, it’s one of the most challenging courses featuring rolling fairways. If golf is not your thing, but enjoying the outdoors in a park is, then the 99-acre Innis Park is close to Champions Golf Course. It’s the trailhead for the Alum Creek Trail, a 25-mile-long trail that follows Alum Creek and goes from the northern suburb of Westerville to the Three Creeks Metro Park southeast of downtown Columbus.

Kids in Hyde Park could attend Innis Elementary School, part of the Columbus City School District. Students who attend this school have a good chance of getting individualized attention. The Niche website says the student-to-teacher ratio is 15-to-1. Mifflin Middle School has about 350 students in grades six through eight. Niche says Mifflin High School has an 18-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio.

It's a little less than 15 minutes to drive southeast to the John Glenn Columbus International Airport from Westbrook. If you want to catch an Ohio State Buckeye athletic event on campus, that’s about a 15-minute drive to the southwest.

Written By

Jeff Stapleton

Photography Contributed By

Holly Haarmeyer

Video By

Stewart Taveras