12-05-2025
Historic and possibly haunted Jury Room building listed for sale in downtown Columbus
A historic downtown Columbus building is up for sale.
The Jury Room, at 22 E. Mound St. in Columbus, hit the market in January for $1.2 million, according to a real estate listing online. It sits diagonally across from the Franklin County courthouse near the intersection of Mound Street and High Street.
The building, which includes 4,464 square feet, includes a fully function restaurant and bar space on the first floor. The second floor has space that can be leased to a tenant that was previously used as a rental and AirBnB, according to the real estate listing.
This isn't the first time the building that's housed the Jury Room has been up for sale.
In 2014, then-owner Elizabeth Lessner sold the Jury Room to another Columbus restaurateur. Property records from the Franklin County Auditor's website show the Jury Room building again changed hands in 2018.
A previous owner of the Jury Room claimed the building was haunted and that ghosts would steal glasses stored in the basement.
Originally opening as a tavern in the 1830s, it evolved into a bordello two decades later, Bucky Cutright, the founder of Columbus Ghost Tours told The Dispatch in 2021. Cutright said that multiple ghosts are said to linger in the space, including an angry customer who, one night in 1859, pounded on the door to get in and was killed by the bordello's madam.
Dispatch investigative reporter Max Filby can be reached by email at mfilby@ Find him on X at the handle @MaxFilby or on Facebook at @ReporterMaxFilby.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Historic and haunted downtown Columbus Jury Room bar up for sale
