Grandview Heights / Marble Cliff Historical Society

Urlin Mansion (c. 1890)

1600 Goodale Blvd

(Designed by Kremer and Hart)

George Cambridge Urlin was born in 1850 in England and arrived in Columbus around 1873, when he established the Urlin Mammoth Art Studio on South High Street. An extraordinary entrepreneur, his other interests included ownership of the Columbus Bicycle Factory and the Columbus Laminated Tube Tire Company. Like many of their peers Urlin and his wife Alice were also active in the burgeoning local real estate market. By the turn of the century their Suburban Real Estate Company owned three separate Grandview Heights subdivisions including a huge amount of land stretching from Fifth Avenue South to Dublin Road. In addition to donating the land for the library, the Brotherhood of the Rooks home, and McKinley Field, they also named the city. The city’s name evolved from Alice’s exclamation of what a “Grand View” from the tower of the family estate high on the hill where Summit Chase sits today. George died July 22, 1942, at the age of 92.

The second two images are drawings of the mansion by Bill Arter.

Scroll down for more great images.

Alice and George Cambridge Urlin, photographed in their studio on South High Street.

George Urlin later in life.