When you step into Karla Rothan’s Victorian Village residence, it’s easy to envision it as a place where people came to visit a doctor in the early 1900s. Even though the craftsman home, built in 1875, has just undergone a complete renovation, the bones of the medical practice are still evident. An enclosed front porch that is believed to have once been a waiting room for patients remains. Just behind it is Rothan’s office, which retains the examination room’s cabinetry where the doctor likely kept his vials, syringes and medicine.
Rothan’s research on her home on West First avenue found that many doctors worked in Victorian Village at the time, and it was common to have medical practices on the first floor while their families lived upstairs. It’s part of the home’s rich history that lives on along with original stained glass, transoms and working fireplaces.
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The home was purchased in 1995 by Rothan’s late spouse, Linda Schuler, who worked at the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department while also restoring properties in Clintonville and the Victorian Village and Short North area.
When Schuler bought her first property in Victorian Village in 1976—a double also on West First avenue—the once-grand neighborhood was in a state of urban decay. Many of the late 1800s-era’s stately brick homes had been razed or were crumbling and the elegant features of others were destroyed as they were converted to rental units.
Amid the blight, Schuler saw an opportunity. She was one of the first women in the Columbus area to receive a loan to purchase, renovate and restore property without a male co-signer when she bought her first property in Clintonville in 1974. The Victorian Village double cost just $25,000. The neighborhood was so run down, however, that she couldn’t get the home insured.
“Linda was an urban pioneer,” says Rothan. “When she wasn’t working her full-time job, she was busy sanding floors, stripping the woodwork and doing the renovations on her properties on her own.”
The over 3,000-square-foot single family home intrigued Schuler because it was spacious enough for her to take care of her ailing mother at the time. She made updates to the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home and created living quarters for her mom downstairs.
Rothan and Schuler became a couple in 1996 after performing together in a play—Murder at the Lazy L Saloon—at the now closed Far Side bar on the city’s West Side. They began living together and made the home a mix of both of their styles, including collecting works of art from local artists and their world travels. They were married Oct. 6, 2018.
How the historic Victorian Village home was restored
After Schuler died in October 2022, Rothan decided on a complete interior renovation to rebuild the house from the inside out “so it will last another 100 years.” She worked with John Behal and Dan Morgan of BSD Architects on the design work in the summer of 2023. Demolition and construction started in the summer of 2024.
Rothan wanted all new hardwood floors on the first floor and a modern kitchen with a gas stove. When the old floors started coming up and the kitchen walls started coming down, massive termite damage was discovered in wooden beams, which had to be remediated by installing new support joists in the basement. Unbeknownst to her, the termite damage was why the kitchen tile had been cracking.
A wall that separated what was then the dining room and kitchen was removed to create an open entertainment area. A new kitchen with an island was built. All the crown molding matches and you can’t tell the old from the new—a feat by the architects that Rothan describes as “an art.”
Upstairs, Rothan reconfigured the layout to create a primary suite with a walk-in closet and bath. The closet formerly was a bedroom and “every single woman who comes in here says, ‘Oh, come on, Karla,’ “ referring to its large size.
To achieve the connection of the three rooms, plumbing had to be rearranged while the ceiling in the parlor below was lowered to make room for the plumbing in the two upstairs baths. The primary bath features striking porcelain blue tile sourced from Hamilton Parker that reminds Rothan of the couple’s trip to Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada.
The third floor was finished and duct work was installed so the home could have down draft air-conditioning.
In the back yard, designer Leila David created a British garden as an homage to Schuler’s love of the Cotswolds and incorporated personal touches, such as bricks Schuler brought back from her parents’ hometown of Pomeroy, Ohio, and heart-shaped features that remind Rothan of the love the two shared. Pieces of an old cistern that the couple dug up in the backyard were used as part of the creation of walking paths.
Rothan moved back into the home this past June. It is part of this year’s 50th anniversary of the Short North Civic Association’s Tour of Homes and Gardens, which will take place Sunday, Sept. 21. She describes her style as “eclectic and transitional” with design touches that reflect the old and the new. The renovation was meant to make the home feel elegant and comfortable and pay tribute to Schuler’s passion for restoration.
“I channeled Linda’s energy,” she says. “I tried to do all the things she was going to do and didn’t have time to do it. Even though it’s aesthetically pleasing, what’s more important is the work we did to restore the structure of the home so it lasts for a long, long time.
“Linda really cared about preservation,” she says. “When you restore an old home, you restore the significance of your history, your neighborhood and your community. You leave something for future generations to look at so they can understand—this is how we lived, this is how we carried on.”
This story appeared in the October 2025 issue of Columbus Monthly. Subscribe here.
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