Over-the-Rhine is home to 11 historic churches, including St. Paulus Kirche, Cincinnati's oldest Protestant church. To honor that legacy,
Taft’s Ale House — itself located in a renovated historic church — is teaming up with
American Legacy Tours and the
Over-the-Rhine Foundation to offer guided tours of neighborhood churches.
American Legacy Tours will lead two 90-minute tours of five historic OTR churches on Sept. 9: the former St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, which is now Taft’s Ale House, at 1429 Race St.; St. Francis Seraph, 1615 Vine St.; First Lutheran, 1208 Race St.; Nast Community (formerly known as Nast Trinity United Methodist Church), 1310 Race; and Old St. Mary’s, 123 E. 13th St.
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“Each church included on the tour is currently serving the OTR community in one form or another,” says Erica Spitzig, attorney at Graydon Head. “The tour will serve to engage participants in the history, character and beauty of the OTR neighborhood while highlighting some of the amenities it has to offer its residents.”
The tours will help continue the OTR Foundation’s mission of teaching potential property owners how to successfully redevelop owner-occupied properties in Over-the-Rhine. The Foundation started a program in 2014 that covers property selection, financing opportunities and guidelines for working with historic properties and neighborhoods.
The Foundation hosted a Lessons Learned Workshop in June that featured three property owners whose buildings were at various stages of redevelopment. The first-hand accounts helped others who are interested in buying, rehabbing and living in OTR.
Tickets for the church tours are $30 and can be purchased on American Legacy Tours’
website. The first tour begins at 6:30 p.m. and the second at 7 p.m.; both tours start and end at Taft’s, where attendees can enjoy a pint as part of their ticket price.
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