Bexley
Upper Arlington's east-side twin: big trees, big houses, an art deco cinema, a governor's residence and almost no hotel rooms.
Art deco Drexel Theatre marquee on East Main Street in Bexley, Ohio
Why people stay in Bexley
Bexley is a small independent city of about 14,000 people, roughly nine miles east of Upper Arlington and completely surrounded by Columbus. Anyone who knows Upper Arlington will recognise it immediately: 1920s brick and stone houses on wide tree-lined streets, a fiercely defended school district, a compact commercial strip, and property prices that surprise visitors. East Main Street and East Broad Street are the two spines. Capital University, founded in 1830, sits on Main, and the Ohio Governor's Residence sits on North Parkview Avenue in a Jacobean Revival house from 1925.
Evenings here are domestic. At nine on a Friday, the Drexel Theatre on East Main has a late show letting out, Rubino's has a queue for thin-crust pizza, Johnson's is still scooping ice cream, and everything else is closed or closing. There are no clubs and there is no bar strip. What you get instead is the pleasure of a real neighbourhood you can walk at night without thinking about it — porch lights, students crossing back to Capital, someone walking a dog on Cassingham Road.
The hard truth for a hotel guide is that Bexley has essentially no hotels. There is a very small amount of lodging and a modest rental market in the older apartment buildings near Main, and that is it. Visitors who need a room usually stay downtown, ten minutes west on Broad Street, or out at the Easton and I-270 clusters ten minutes north. Anyone who does find a Bexley rental at $95 to $150 a night is getting a quiet, safe, leafy base with free street parking and a genuine main street.
Come here if you like architecture, independent cinema, and neighbourhoods that feel lived in. It pairs well with German Village and downtown for an east-side day. Skip it if you need hotel amenities, if you are chasing nightlife, or if your trip is really centred on Upper Arlington — nine miles across the city at 5pm is a 30-minute drive, and doing that twice a day for a week will wear you down.
If you can find one, the best rentals sit in the blocks between East Main Street and East Broad Street around Cassingham, Roosevelt and Parkview — walkable to the cinema, the library and the shops, quiet after dark, with free on-street parking. Expect $95 to $150 a night for a whole flat or house, more during Capital University graduation and Ohio State home weekends. Realistically most visitors will stay outside Bexley: downtown Columbus is ten minutes west and has the volume, while the Easton area to the north has the newer mid-range chains at $110 to $160. Avoid assuming that a hotel advertised on East Broad Street near I-270 is in Bexley — that is five miles further out, a car-only location, and a different experience entirely.
Things to do in Bexley
Twenty-two-fifty-four East Main Street. A 1937 art deco single-screen turned three, now a nonprofit cinema showing independent, foreign and repertory titles alongside the odd blockbuster. Tickets sit around $11. The neon marquee is the best-known image of Bexley and the lobby still feels like 1937.
Twenty-six-forty-three East Main Street, trading since 1954 and almost unchanged: paper-thin crust, cut in squares, minimal decor and famously restricted hours and payment. Check the days before you go — it closes more than you expect — and take cash. A large pizza feeds two for around $18.
Twenty-seven-twenty-eight East Main Street. Making its own ice cream on East Main since 1950; the queue runs out of the door on warm evenings and locals will argue about which flavour is definitive. Scoops are a few dollars. It is a five-minute walk from the Drexel, which is exactly the order to do them in.
One-sixty-five North Parkview Avenue. Jeffrey Mansion, an English Tudor pile built in 1905 for the Jeffrey Manufacturing family, now the city's recreation centre, set in a wooded park with Alum Creek running through it, playgrounds and shaded paths. Free and open daily; the grounds are prettiest in late October.
Three-fifty-eight North Parkview Avenue. The official residence of Ohio's governor since 1957, with a Heritage Garden planted to represent the state's five natural regions. Free guided tours run by appointment on limited days — book well ahead. Even from the pavement, the 1925 stonework is worth the two-minute detour.
Twenty-four-eleven East Main Street. A busy, well-funded independent library with a good local history section and a pleasant reading room, surrounded by the Main Street shops — a natural foods market, bakeries, a couple of good Italian restaurants. It is the practical heart of the town and open late several evenings a week.
What to see
Hotels near Bexley
No hotels are listed in Bexley yet. The nearest ones are on the region page.
Getting around Bexley
COTA Route 10 runs East Broad Street through Bexley and reaches downtown Columbus in about 15 to 20 minutes, with buses every 15 to 30 minutes and service into the evening — it is the one genuinely useful transit line here. From the airport it is a short hop of 15 minutes and roughly $20 to $26 by rideshare, the cheapest airport transfer of any area in this guide. Upper Arlington is nine miles west, 20 minutes off-peak and closer to 30 at 5pm, via Broad Street or I-670 and Route 315. Inside Bexley everything is walkable: Main Street end to end takes 20 minutes and street parking is free and easy.
Questions about Bexley
Effectively no. Bexley is almost entirely residential and has kept it that way, so lodging amounts to a couple of small options and a handful of rentals. Most visitors book downtown Columbus, ten minutes west on Broad Street, or the newer mid-range hotels near Easton to the north, and drive or take Route 10 in for the evening.
They are close cousins — both independent cities inside Columbus, both built out in the 1910s and 1920s, both with strong schools and large trees. Bexley is smaller and denser, with more of its life on one street, East Main. Upper Arlington is larger, greener, more spread out, and has more retail at Tremont and Kingsdale. Bexley is nine miles east.
Yes, free of charge, but only by advance appointment on limited days, and the schedule shifts with the governor's calendar. Book weeks ahead through the residence's own booking system. The Heritage Garden, laid out to represent Ohio's five natural regions, is the part most visitors remember, and photography rules apply inside the house.
For a half day, yes — pair it with German Village or downtown and make one east-side trip rather than two. Drive over mid-morning, do Main Street, the Drexel matinee, Jeffrey Park and an ice cream, and come back before the 5pm crawl on Broad Street. It is 20 minutes each way off-peak and 30 in traffic.
