Columbus Goetchius House opening soon

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) - It’s sat vacant for more than a decade, and now one woman is bringing new life into a Columbus staple: The Goetchius House.

“It’s been amazing because it seems like everyone has had some memory of the house,” Renata Martoni, owner, said.

New life is being breathed into the historic Goetchius House, and Brazilian native/ high-end home interior designer, Renata Martoni is behind the work to preserve the architecture and improve the infrastructure.

She is turning the home into a restaurant, café, garden and much more: “We’re going to do an ice cream shop, one out of Savannah. We’re going to have microgreens, a vegetable garden, and the food I am going to serve here is Mediterranean.”

New York native Richard Goetchius built home in 1839 for his wife in a different location in Columbus. The home was passed down through family generations until 1969, when it was donated to the Columbus Historic Foundation. At that time, it was going to be destroyed.

However, James Woodruff Jr. cut the home into several pieces, and moved it to its current location on Broadway. Since then, it has been everything from a restaurant, to an event space to a club.

Now Martoni is putting her twist of style in the décor and restoration.

“We have new bathrooms. We’re remodeling the new bathrooms with my favorite brand of wallpaper from Italy. I really love how it came out, the work. We use a black and white tile in the bathrooms and café downstairs. We bought some type of black and white tile, so we can change the pattern in nine different designs. The bar downstairs used to be the bar, now it’s going to be the café so we brought it back with light colors,” she said.

The development is set to open late this fall.

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