herr2ck: Victorian Architecture Parlante

March 2026.

The Peter Sells House, better known as the Circus House, is one of the best-known residential landmarks in Columbus. A Yost & Packard design and probably their most well-known work among the general public, it prominently occupies the northwest corner of Goodale Park. Its history is extremely well-documented, from the lineage of Peter Sells himself and his circus’s history to the later tenants of the house and their modifications to it. I don’t have very many articles with such extensive resources to draw from, so I went all-out and included every single relevant bit of information possible.

The Circus House is located at 755 Dennison Avenue in the Victorian Village neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Buttles Avenue and the William Fish House to the north, more houses to the south, Dennison Avenue and Goodale Park to the east, and Hunter Avenue to the west.

Peter Sells Biography

The Circus House was built for Peter Sells, one of the four co-founders of the Sells Brothers Circus. Peter Sells’ ancestors lived in America as early as the late 1700s, as German immigrant Ludwig Sells and his two sons sailed to what is now Dublin, Ohio from Pennsylvania in 1801. Ludwig’s grandson Peter (not the subject of the article, this Peter Sells is the circus owner’s father--I’ll call them Peter Sr. and Jr. for clarity in this part) moved to Columbus in 1834 and worked as a farmer and Methodist preacher.

Peter Sr. grew to be quite wealthy, having eleven children, five of which were sons. Peter Sells Jr. was born on April 6, 1845, in Columbus. He was raised there but moved to Cleveland with his father in 1854, completing school in 1862 and delivering newspapers for the Cleveland Leader thereafter. After a brief period in Pennsylvania managing shipping for Rockefeller & Andrews in 1865, Peter Jr. joined three of his brothers, Ephraim, Allen, and Lewis, who were auctioneers that followed traveling circuses by wagon to capitalize on the audience that they drew.

Peter Sells returned to Columbus in 1870, operating an auction store with Allen while working as a reporter at the Ohio State Journal. The elder three brothers attempted to start their own circus, failed, and decided to recruit Peter for their cause as well.

A drawing of Sells from 1898. (Wikimedia)

Peter Sells was referred to as the “front man” or the general agent of the circus. He was not the ringmaster as viewers of The Greatest Showman might imagine; instead, he traveled ahead of time to coordinate the circus’s transportation, reserve space, and post advertisements. Peter reportedly disliked the performers and the circus equipment itself, but perhaps owing to his earlier role as a journalist, he was an expert in terms of logistics and publicity. James A. Bailey (of Barnum & Bailey) offered Peter a $5,000 salary to become his circus’s general agent in 1878, resulting in his brothers realizing his worth and giving him shares of the company.

Rain delays in the 1876 season stranded Peter Sells in Edina, Missouri, and while staying at a hotel owned by J. C. Luker, Sells met his future wife Mary Luker. (Bear in mind Peter was 31 at that time, and Mary did not turn 18 until they were married two years later.) Peter and Mary were married in Canton, Missouri in 1878, her hometown. The two moved back to Columbus shortly afterwards, since the circus was headquartered there. They lived in various homes in the near north side until the Circus House was completed.

A portrait of Peter Sells taken shortly before his death in 1904. (Wikimedia)

The Circus House was in large part meant for Mary Sells, since she disliked Peter’s frequent travel (he was gone seven months a year) and would not accompany him after the birth of their daughter, and she did not share his obsession with the circus. Mary was often stuck at home alone with their young daughter Florence, who was born sometime in the 1880s.

Evidently, Peter’s scheme to placate his wife did not work. It was rumored that Mary Sells had affairs with William Bott, owner of the Bott Brothers Billiards & Saloon in downtown Columbus, along with Harry Lyons, a railway clerk who was an acquaintance of Peter, both in the late 1880s. (The original storefront for Bott’s business remains on the Columbia Larrimer Building, which I’ve also visited.) Another source states that Mary was “romantically involved” with a third man when she traveled to California and Australia with the circus. Peter Sells moved out of the house in November 1899 and filed for divorce shortly thereafter.

The subsequent trial was widely reported upon due to the scandalous nature of an affair at the time, and the Circus House itself was alleged to be the location where Mary hosted one or more of her masters (is that the male equivalent of a mistress?). Peter Sells had hired private investigators to watch the house and the suspected affair partners William Bott and Harry Lyons. One of the investigators, John Mahoney, observed Bott riding his bicycle to the house late at night and leaving it parked in the porte-cochere. Mahoney confiscated the bicycle and stored it in his attic, producing it at trial, and he claimed to have observed Bott coming and going in the evening on multiple other occasions. Another witness, family friend Augusta Sivalis, testified that Mary Sells stated that she “hoped Peter would never come back alive” after Peter was sent to the hospital for a case of vertigo; and after Mrs. Sivalis noticed two diamond rings that Mary revealed were given to her by William Bott, Mary went on to say that Peter wouldn’t notice because “[h]e is so blind he can’t see anything but business, business.” Harry Lyons was exonerated after the investigators discovered he never visited the house without Peter Sells being there.

An interesting side of the story that isn’t elaborated on, unlike the heaps of drama regarding Mary Sells’ infidelity, was that Peter Sells was likewise accused of adultery during the same trial. It was reported to have occurred in Kansas City with one Grace Beall, but the judge dismissed these allegations. Given that the trial was over 125 years ago, it is impossible to tell if Peter Sells was truly the innocent victim that he was painted as.

Mary lived in the Circus House during the trial, but in either December 1900 or early 1901, Peter reacquired the house and kicked Mary to the curb, remaining with his daughter. After the divorce was granted, Peter Sells sold the house within two years, lamenting that “the wound may heal, but the scar remains forever.” He suffered a stroke in August 1904 and died soon after on October 5, 1904. Mary Sells received two houses in the alimony payment, living in a brick one north of Warren Avenue and renting the other on North High Street.

Sells Brothers Circus History

An 1880 photo of the four brothers. (Wikimedia)

The Sells Brothers Circus was one of the largest and most successful in the entire country, making its founders very wealthy. The first Sells Brothers Circus was held in 1871 at State Street and High Street in downtown Columbus. Their act consisted of “Cannonball George Richards” (a man whose act was propelling himself out of a giant cannon), secondhand circus equipment, nine cages of animals, two camels, and a few sideshow acts such as horseback riding. Their first season was successful, so the four brothers went all-in, investing their entire savings and several thousand dollars worth of borrowed money into the circus. This led to the purchase of their first elephant in 1873. The four brothers had varying roles within the organization--Allen Sells managed the show, Ephraim Sells was his assistant and the superintendent, Lewis Sells was treasurer and managed tickets, and Peter Sells was the “front man” (as mentioned earlier).

An 1880 ad for the circus. (Library of Congress)

The Sells Brothers Circus grew more popular with each passing year. As of 1878, the circus was transported via rail instead of the more time-consuming wagon train, as they had purchased equipment from another circus that had gone out of business. By 1883, the circus had eight elephants, and as of 1890, they were the second largest circus in the entire United States. Every season brought larger and more outlandish shows, often in collaboration with other circuses. A typical season in the mid-1880s began in Columbus in mid-April before traveling westward for the summer, ending in a southern city in early December. Their strongest audience was in the Midwest, particularly its western states such as Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. The circus traveled east on occasion, but the New England area was the territory of Barnum & Bailey, the largest circus in America. At its peak, the Sells Brothers Circus used 47 railroad cars transported on three separate trains, including a 328-foot “big top,” six large tents, 322 workers, 64 performers, 50 cages of animals (such as pumas, black panthers, tigers, bears, and hippos), 13 elephants, and seven camels. Sideshows included “giants,” tattooed people, a magician, little people, a snake charmer, knife throwers, and “Hindoo” men and their wives.

Another circus advertisement from 1895. (Library of Congress)

Amusingly, the brothers’ scheme to include a “Wild West Show” (very popular at the time) in 1887 resulted in several blunders. They hired one Major Gordon W. Lillie to appropriate authentic cowboys and Native Americans for this show, but Lillie had difficulty due to a government order preventing the removal of Native Americans from their reservations for use as entertainment. (The fact that this order even had to be passed in the first place is absurd.) He was eventually arrested, and the brothers instead used costumes and makeup for the show. This Wild West Show also resulted in tragedy in a visit to Clinton, Iowa, as the performers’ guns were mistakenly loaded with real bullets, resulting in three fatalities, including the county attorney’s wife. The circus immediately packed up and left the state, avoiding Iowa for several years thereafter, but the brothers had to pay $50,000 in damages. On a lighter note, a young Annie Oakley was a performer in the show for a year.

An 1882 poster of Sellsville. (WOSU)

During the winters, the circus equipment and workers were housed in a 1000-acre area called Sellsville across the Olentangy River and north of 5th Avenue. There were living quarters and a dining hall for 50 workers, a barn for the animals, a train shed for the unused railroad cars, and a wagon shed. Visitors were allowed on Sundays and could see the animals and trainers rehearse at the “Ring Barn.” The surrounding area was largely industrial and had an unusually integrated population for the time, with Romani living in the woods during the summer, vagabonds settling near the Hocking Valley Railway, and a school known as the “Polkadot School” due to its even mix of Black and white students. Unfortunately, this meant in practice that there was an available workforce that could be had for cheaper than white workers. Animal escapes were not uncommon, sometimes resulting in property damage but typically just a scare to the residents.

The circus in Boston circa 1890-1895. (Boston Public Library)

Although the Sells Brothers Circus continued to operate through the 1890s, it was not quite as successful as its earlier years, largely due to increased competition from newer shows. The brothers often had partnerships with these acts in exchange for funding and advertisements. The circus traveled to Australia in 1891, but many of the animals became sick with glanders and died, resulting in the survivors being forced to quarantine and the purchase of replacements. James A. Bailey (of Barnum & Bailey) acquired one-third interest in the circus in 1895. Ephraim Sells died in 1898, and another two quarters of the business were acquired by Bailey and W. W. Cole (of Cole Brothers Circus) afterwards. In 1900, the Sells Brothers Circus merged with Adam Forepaugh’s circus, which Bailey also owned, to form the Adam Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Circus.

With Peter and Allen’s deaths in 1904, Lewis Sells was the lone remaining owner, and he was not interested in taking over the family business. Lewis sold his last shares of the company to James Bailey in 1905, who went on to sell half of the circus to the Ringling Brothers (whom the Sellses disparaged as the “Ding Dong Brothers”), and Lewis put up the equipment for auction, which was all purchased by Bailey as well. Bailey died in 1906 and the Ringlings acquired the entire Sells empire, sending it on three more tours in 1907, 1910, and 1911, and closing the Columbus headquarters in 1910. Afterwards, the act became a part of the larger conglomerate that became known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Circus House History

Packard’s original floor plans for the house. (Circus House website)

Very large for its time, the Circus House is three stories tall with 7,414 square feet of space, with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and two powder rooms. It also has a rather grand carriage house facing Hunter Avenue, itself over 1,600 square feet. Even among the opulent Queen Annes of Neil Avenue and Buttles Avenue, the Circus House was designed to stand out.

A historic photo of the Circus House. Aside from the Elah Terrell House immediately south, which has been demolished and is now part of the lawn, the other houses on Dennison mostly stand today. (Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society)

The Circus House can be best described as eclectic in style, meaning that it borrows from several architectural styles and movements. An 1891 family trip to California reportedly influenced the house’s appearance, likely seen in the Mission Revival details such as the Ludowici clay tile roof. Additionally, a period newspaper described it as “modernized French Gothic.” Other details on the exterior are “Moorish” (in the language of the time), such as the pointed windows and openings. It was designed by prominent Columbus architecture firm Yost & Packard--reportedly Frank Packard alone with major contributions from George Henry Bulford (of successor firm Richards, McCarty, & Bulford)--and the house was completed in 1895 at a cost of $40,000 (~1.6 million 2025 dollars). The Sells family furnished the house with decor they purchased during their travels.

The house in 1898. (Columbus Navigator)

As mentioned earlier, Peter Sells sold the house soon after his divorce was finalized. Three other families lived in the Circus House through 1924, and with the advent of the “horseless carriage,” the carriage house was used for servant housing.

The Circus House had a wide array of commercial and office-related tenants beginning in 1925. An early occupant of the main house was United Commercial Travelers, an organization and aspiring secret society of traveling salesmen. UCT allowed other organizations to use the house for meeting space as well. The carriage house’s use from 1925 to 1937 is unknown, but beginning in 1938, it housed the Wm. (William) E. Cooper Food Company, and William Cooper briefly used the carriage house as a residence as well. UCT also built a frame addition onto the west end of the main house for additional kitchen space in the 1930s, which remains standing today.

The Fraternal Order of Police used the house for meetings from 1953 to 1959, but the carriage house became vacant in 1956. After a brief period of use as a rehab center for alcoholics from 1960 to 1961, the first floor of the house was converted to a daycare center and the carriage house to a kindergarten in 1963 and was used as such for the following 30 years. The house’s second and third floors were used as a residence, and the second floor of the carriage house was an apartment. Although the exterior is mostly unaltered today, the porch had its decorative cornice removed before 1965 (it has since been restored), and the three dormers were removed sometime before 1973.

The Circus House in 1980. (NRHP listing)

Surprisingly, this historic house does not have any historic designation, beyond its role as a contributing property in the Near Northside Historic District, listed in 1980. According to a 1997 Short North Gazette article, the interior retained few original features. It was reported that the first floor was almost completely gutted, with only a few fireplaces and the wood floors remaining intact. The second floor had a higher degree of integrity, with plaster arches in the common area and master bedroom as well as a stained-glass window with Peter Sells’ initials.

In 1998, the Circus House returned to residential use with its purchase by the Brownstein family, who fully restored the house before selling it to Fritz Harding, a trustee of the Columbus Historical Society and department chair at CCAD, in 2008. Harding and his family modified the interior to a circus theme, along with installing a geothermal heating system. The present four-car garage next to the carriage house and its fireplace (inspired by the house’s original chimneys) were also built for the Hardings. However, they moved to a quieter area in 2016 and sold the house to Weston Wolfe for $1.5 million.

Wolfe’s ownership was disastrous for the historic house. He attempted to use it as a statement piece to entice customers of his insurance company, but it had the opposite effect, with many concluding that Wolfe did not need their business. Wolfe heavily altered (and arguably defaced) the interior, which involved staining the wooden floors, painting interior trim, removing light fixtures, adding gold trim, and installing black quartz flooring by the entrances. The house’s pool to the south was also added at this time. The Circus House website elaborates further and says that the house was left without plumbing, electricity, or climate control, and the window glass was even painted. By June 2019, Wolfe listed the house for sale, as the debt incurred from these renovations forced him to sell his business and file for bankruptcy.

Damage and poorly-conceived alterations to the house in 2020. (Columbus Dispatch)

Huntington Bank foreclosed on the Circus House in January 2020. During its foreclosure, the house was broken into at least once, which resulted in vandalism to the interior. When it was put up for auction, damage from Wolfe’s renovations and the break-ins extended to missing trim and fireplaces, damaged plumbing, smashed mirrors, and even the severing of the house’s electrical line. The extensive repairs required meant that the house did not reach its minimum bid, and it was put up again without a minimum in July 2020.

The Circus House is presently owned by the Henry family. Despite an $873,400 price tag, the new owners had already estimated repair work would cost the same amount, hiring an architect (Darryl Rogers of Rogers Kranjak) and designer (Michael Nielsen) to restore the house. Necessary repairs, along with restorations to the interior, were completed in March 2022. Weston Wolfe still owned the carriage house for a period (it has a separate tax parcel), but the Henrys acquired it a few months after they purchased the Circus House itself. Presently, the carriage house is rented out as an AirBnB and used as a meeting room for the owners’ company, while the main house remains a private residence.

Photos

The Circus House in all its gaudy glory:

The residence is one of the best-known in Columbus for good reason. Its frivolously exotic exterior and odd proportions (the roof is taller than the two floors below, for instance) lend the design a certain je ne sais quoi. “Eclectic” is not just a stylistic description but also a visual one--the house is visually busy and highly asymmetrical. The aesthetics are far different from the Queen Annes nearby.

You might be curious about what “architecture parlante” is, and what the Victorian era has anything to do with it. Architecture parlante, or speaking architecture, was an often speculative movement in the late 18th century where a building was designed to precisely represent its function. For instance, an example I was shown in architectural history was a dairy building that was a giant sculpture of a cow. It is also featured prominently in Postmodern architecture and theory, such as Denise Scott Brown’s idea of the “duck” (an architecture parlante design) versus the “decorated shed.” I’ve also visited the Longaberger Basket Building in Newark, Ohio, a built example of Postmodern architecture parlante.

Based on the house’s roof, which is said to be inspired by the “big top” tents of the circus, and the decorative trim of the first floor that is also modeled on circus decor, it can be argued that the Circus House is an adapted version of architecture parlante that communicates the business of its owners.

The porch is accessed via a large archway, which has a subtle point to it to match the other peaked windows on the exterior. Remember, the decorative cornice is a recreation of the original design (which is visible on other parts of the house)--the owners even hired a master mason to rebuild it.

A detail of this brickwork, with pointed arches:

One of the two rounded bay windows on either side of the porch:

The windows have decorative terra-cotta borders engraved with a bead-and-reel pattern, adding even more subtle texture to the exterior:

Although the modern brickwork on the porch matches the bond and pattern of the original cornice exactly, the shade is slightly off, and isn’t the Creamsicle orange that the house was built with (seen here):

Naturally, the most memorable feature of the house is its steeply pitched roof, dramatically ending in a tiny point:

It is built of Ludowici clay tile from New Lexington. The third floor that it hid has been rumored to hold a carousel, but it was actually intended to be a ballroom for entertaining the Sells’ guests. (I don’t think Yost & Packard sent the necessary concrete piers to hold that massive load right through the mansion below.) The towers on either side indicate that it is habitable, in the same manner as a Second Empire mansard roof.

The eaves flare outward with an curvilinear flourish, overhanging the exterior walls by more than a foot:

Note the ogee-shaped rafters visible beneath as well, now painted a contrasting shade of aqua.

The brick chimneys are excellent as well and feature some of the best brickwork I’ve seen on a Victorian-era design:

Gothic and Gothic Revival architecture tends to have even crazier chimneys. One example can be seen on Mack Hall on Ohio State campus.

Oblique view from the southeast:

The driveway and pool are visible here. Remember, this part of Dennison Avenue used to be densely packed, and there was a neighboring house there at one time (the Elah Terrell House).

The modern fireplace can be viewed in the rear, itself modeled after the ornate chimneys of the house:

One of the Islamic-inspired windows on the second floor as viewed from here:

I could see why these evoke Gothic Revival imagery in some people’s minds, but pointed arches aren’t unique to Gothic architecture, and Victorian architects frequently looked to “exotic” (meaning non-Western) precedents for their eclectic designs. Additionally, Gothic Revival homes went out of style around 1880.

The widely varying roof profile and the chimney:

Note the little “PS” medallion here, too:

The north facade is simpler and dominated by its porte-cochere, where Gilded Age visitors could disembark their carriages without soaking their petticoats or having to deal with the elements:

I’m sure that feature made Sells quite the talk of the town when his house was built--very few others in Columbus have one, and the only example that comes to mind is the Old Governor’s Mansion on Broad Street (also a Packard design). Centered above that porte-cochere is a tower with a conical roof:

The tower itself is also similar to another well-known Yost & Packard design--the former Toledo & Ohio Station in Franklinton. The Circus House shares many decorative cues that are signatures of Y&P, namely eclectic design, uneven massing, and clay tile roofs.

From the northwest:

A bit of the west facade is visible, and since that side faces the yard, it lacks the decorative treatment of the others. Also present in this photo is the frame kitchen addition built in the 1930s (the one-story portion with siding partially hidden by the hedge).

The carriage house mimics the main house’s appearance, but its smaller scale results in a far more whimsical effect: