By Duane St. Clair

In Melanie Circle Brown’s diligent research effort about a prominent old home in Upper Arlington, she finally turned to the telephone directory. The result was a meeting with Henry T. Phillips III and a joint visit his childhood home, built by his grandfather 85 years ago.

Brown, a UA resident and genealogy enthusiast, dug into the unwritten history of the home at 2575 Leeds Rd. It is being redecorated from top to bottom, inside and out, to serve as the 18th Decorators’ Show House, a charitable effort by the Women’s Board of the Columbus Museum of Art. Brown is co-chair of publicity for the event, which will be held April 18 through May 10.

After scouring records in the Franklin County Auditor’s Office, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, city directories, and the Internet, she put together in some detail the history of the property, which was built in 1924.

That history began when homeowner and printing company owner Henry T. Phillips Sr. bought 7.5 wooded acres from the Asbury Co., which owned a farm originally owned by Solomon and Perthena Evans. Phillips died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1937. His only child, Henry T. Jr., took over the printing company and continued living in the home with his mother Elizabeth.

Henry T. Jr. earned a law degree from Franklin University but never practiced because of his father’s death and an obligation to run the printing company. He married in the late 1940s, and he and his wife Toma continued living with his mother.

Henry III, his sister Susan Elizabeth (who now lives in Houston) his parents and his grandmother lived in the home until 1957 when he was 8 years old. Henry said he later lived in two other UA homes with his parents. He now lives just north of the city with his wife Susan, and they have two grown children.

Brown’s research had not located a Phillips family member until her telephone book discovery of the surviving Henry and their visit to the home. The handsome building looks nothing like it did when Phillips Sr. built it: it currently stands at about 8,000 square feet, twice it original size. Once a stone structure, it’s now a Tudor.

Because of his young age when he lived there and numerous changes to the home, Henry’s recollections are sometimes precise, sometimes vague.

Standing at what is now the front entrance looking at the wooded lot that once extended to Lane Avenue, he noted, “We were not allowed to play there.” The family had learned during Prohibition a friend and restaurant owner had stored liquor in the woods. Now there are houses there.

As he toured the original part of the home, he mentally sketched its past and present layouts.

“I imagine an architect went nuts,” he said.

The front entrance was formerly located off a porch into the living room on one end of the home, next to a fireplace which is still there. Upstairs, the kids’ adjacent bedrooms remain. Henry gazed out a window into a yard which he felt was “enormous” when he lived there. He also recalled the front porch roof was just below his bedroom window, and that a badly-thrown folded newspaper once stayed on the roof for two years.

He also recalled in the past that his clothes “just showed up clean,” but has no idea now, nor did he then, where the washer was. Brown said she and associates have deduced it was in the now-remodeled basement, which includes an area that was a coal bin.

According to Brown’s research, Henry’s grandmother sold the property to prominent UA architect Robert R. Royce, who extensively remodeled and reconfigured the house before selling it eight months later.

Royce and his son Richard subdivided the property, the address of which had been changed from Lane Avenue to Leeds Road. Two homes, including Richard’s, were built closer to Lane Avenue in the woods.

In 1958, the senior Royce sold the Phillips home to Stefan and Regina Bryla, Brown’s research found. Through the years, it was resold to Keith and Marion Wearly in 1961, Michael and John Vaughn (or Haughn) in 1987 and to John W. “Squire” and Alison Galbreath in 1996.

The Galbreaths, the current owners, now live in the Washington D.C. area where he is assistant general manager in the Washington Nationals baseball organization. His grandfather and father once owned the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Galbreaths fostered an expansion of the home that doubled its size. Designed by Behal Sampson Dietz, the new space includes more bedrooms (including a new master suite), a great room with a kitchen, serving counter and a large stone fireplace, an adjoining planning area with a catering kitchen and clothes lockers for children, and an arched walkway to a garage. The great room is above a huge entertainment or family room that was originally a three-car garage, an exceptional amenity for the days in which it was built. The former stone exterior has been incorporated as a handsome interior wall.

Featured in several areas are large wood beams recycled from a fallen barn on the Galbreaths’ Darby Dan Farm in southwestern Franklin County.

Brown said 30 areas inside and outside the home will be redecorated and furnished or re-landscaped for the Show House. Because of fire or building regulations, the former basement and entertainment room cannot be refurbished for visitors to tour. The unfinished basement under the Galbreath addition will be decorated, however. Also, the attached garage will be a gift shop and another area will be reserved for food and refreshments during the event.

Duane St. Clair is contributing editor for Upper Arlington Magazine.

If You Go
The 18th Decorators’ Show House
April 21-May 10
2575 Leeds Rd., just north of Lane Avenue
10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday-Sunday
10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday
Admission is $18 if tickets are ordered before April 20 and $20 at the door. No children under 8 years old, including infants, will be admitted.
For more information or to order tickets online, visit www.columbusmuseum.org.

About the Show House:
• Benefits Columbus Museum of Art
• Sponsored by the Women’s Board, a museum auxiliary and the American Society of Interior Designers Local Chapter 32, whose members donate their services, materials and furnishings
• This year’s theme is green: designers are making an effort to reuse much of the home’s existing features.
• The Show House events raise an average of $300,000 each and typically have about 15,000 visitors.