Joyce Beatty puts home on market for $1.2M
U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty has put her Blacklick home on the market, five months after the death of her husband, Otto Beatty Jr.
The home, on Taylor Corners Circle in Blacklick, includes five bedrooms, fiveand-a-half bathrooms and 7,280 square feet. Coldwell Banker agent Michael Jones is listing the property for $1.2 million.
Beatty is moving into a two-bedroom, 2,379-square-foot Downtown condominium that she bought in September for $599,000.
“I am moving from one part of the district to another part because my husband died,” Beatty said. “Since I recently lost him, it’s difficult for me, so I’ve decided to take my wonderful memories from my wonderful home with me.”
Beatty noted that her husband, a prominent Democratic state legislator who died in May at age 81, was active in Downtown affairs for years.
“I decided to go Downtown because my husband was a pioneer in Downtown development,” she said.
Built in 1988, the Blacklick home sits on 11⁄2 acres. It includes an indoor basketball court, pool, double staircase rising from a two-story great room, a kitchen with four ovens and a Sub-zero refrigerator, a family room and wet bar in the lower level, and a multi-level patio with a hot tub.
Taxes on the home are $20,000 a year.
The Beattys acquired the home from Ohio Dominican University in 2008. The university owned the home for a day before it was placed into a trust for the Beattys, freeing it from the requirement that the sales price be recorded. (It shows up as $0 on the Franklin County Auditor’s site.) Beatty said she thinks her late husband might have put the home in a trust for privacy reasons.
Beatty said she could not remember what the couple paid for the property, but said it was fair market value.
“It was a little over a million maybe,” she said, adding that her husband handled the family’s finances.
“If you asked me how much a car costs, I wouldn’t know,” she said. “It’s just the way my life has been. I never thought to ask, ‘How much was this car? How much was this house?’”
Ohio Dominican University spokesman Tom Brockman said the university was unable to locate any records on the property.
Columbus attorney Michael D. Bridges, who oversaw the trust for a decade before it transferred to the Beattys in 2018, said he was unable to discuss the transaction due to attorney-client confidentiality. jweiker@dispatch.com @Jimweiker