Bexley is a suburban city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States. The population was 13,057 at the 2010 census. Founded as a village over a hundred years ago, the city of Bexley is an old, tree-lined suburb of Columbus, the Ohio state capital, situated on the banks of Alum Creek next to Driving Park and Wolfe Park, just east of the Franklin Park Conservatory. It is horizontally bisected by the National Road (Main Street), serving as a reminder of Bexley's origins as a merger between the prestigious Bullitt Park neighborhood to the north, and the Lutheran college community of Pleasant Ridge to the south.
The historic suburb is perhaps best known, however, for its large houses and estates, located primarily in Bullitt Park. The most famous of these include the Jeffrey Park Mansion (a.k.a. "Kelveden"), the home of the president of The Ohio State University, and the Ohio Governor's Mansion. Located in northern Bexley, the Governor's Mansion—originally built as a private residence in 1925 and given to the state in 1955—has served as the official residence of Ohio governors since 1957, though Governor James A. Rhodes (in his final two terms in office) and Governor John Kasich, both of whom were residents of central Ohio, chose to remain in their private homes while in office.
Along with the municipalities of Minerva Park, Whitehall, Worthington, Upper Arlington, and Valleyview, Bexley is a geographic enclave of Columbus.
Bexley was named at the suggestion of an early resident, Col. Lincoln Kilbourne, in honor of his family's roots in Bexley, in Kent, England. The village of Bexley was incorporated in 1908 when prominent citizens of Bullitt Park to the north along Alum Creek, including industrialist and 35th Mayor of Columbus Robert H. Jeffrey, agreed to merge with the Lutheran community of Pleasant Ridge to the south near the Lutheran Church's Joint Synod of Ohio college, Capital University (established 1850) and the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary (now Trinity Lutheran Seminary) founded 1830. Both educational institutions today are affiliated with the major denomination of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with two-thirds of America's Lutherans.