December 2025.
Courtright School is an odd little school in Columbus, tucked away in Linwood, a little neighborhood southeast of Bexley. It is now endangered, and I took photos before I even knew of this. It is a rare example of the Egyptian Revival style applied to a school design.
Courtright School is located at 1712 Courtright Road in the Linwood neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by suburban-style houses all around and Courtright Road to the west.
History
The Courtright School was built in 1927 by architect Howard Dwight Smith, then the architect of Columbus’s school district. It is in the Egyptian Revival style, as seen on various Egyptian ornamental motifs across the building. It was built for Truro Township at first, which later became part of Whitehall, and the area has now been annexed into the city of Columbus. Whitehall’s school district website notes that it was a smaller four-room schoolhouse at first.
In 1959, the school closed, and the building became the Cathedral of the Covenant Church. A Modern annex was built to the south of the school around this time.
In 2025, the Courtright School was listed for sale, noting that it was “expected to be razed.” It was purchased by St. Michael Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who still owns the property.
Photos
I also don’t have many photos of this one, either. I took these photos when I planned to do a few “school dump” articles, like my other posts along a single street, instead of individual posts for each school like I have now. Even disregarding its threatened status, I think that the unique architecture warranted at least a closer look.
Anyways, here is the west facade from Courtright’s intersection with Liv-Moor Drive:
I cannot think of a more mid-century name for a street than “Liv-Moor.” It sounds like a washing machine brand or something. I can absolutely picture the pastel-colored ads of housewives lauding their new “Liv-Moor.”
The main body of the building has brick pilasters with stone capitals. The metal windows appear to be original, too.
One of the entrances, which has a stone portal reminiscent of an Egyptian temple and a cornice above:
It’s more so tacked onto an otherwise boxy brick building and not great architecture, but it sure is interesting. Did your elementary school have an entrance like this?
Too much prose and too few pictures…I’ll try and be quick with this last story. I parked my car on Liv-Moor briefly to take these pictures, and when I walked on the street by one of the houses, a speaker immediately started blaring: “YOU ARE BEING RECORDED,” along with other warnings of a similar nature to frighten petty trespassers. I looked over and noticed the house had some fancy surveillance system above the garage, shining spotlights in two directions and a giant camera. It did the same song and dance on the way back, but it made me wonder…is Linwood really so bad an area as to warrant a security camera that yells at people who walk by, or are these the world’s most paranoid homeowners?
Sources:
https://columbuslandmarks.org/2026-most-endangered-sites/