Leaving Hyde Park Square: Longtime resident looks back

By Robin Gee, Hyde Park Living Editor

Looking out on Hyde Park Square from a conference room in the front of his office, realtor and longtime resident Michael Hinckley said he will miss waving at the people walking by. He knows many of them. He sold them a house. Sometimes, later, he helped sell their house, or he helped them buy a new house in the neighborhood.

He’s been in the business for 48 years. All of those years were in Hyde Park, and almost 30 have been spent in this location at 2721 Erie Avenue. The Coldwell Banker West Shell building is slated to be knocked down and cleared to make way for the new development. At press time, the details of the controversial development were still being discussed, argued over, but Hinckley said he knew the time had come to move.

He recalled that when he moved into the building on the square all those years ago it was not the first time he’d worked at that address. When he was 14, he worked there at what was the Hyde Park Kroger location. You can still see the ramp in the back where he wheeled carts down to the parking lot to help customers load up their groceries, he said.

A bittersweet time

His company has already begun the move into a new space not far away in a large new office building at 3825 Edwards Road. One of the main benefits of the new space is it will have ample parking, something lacking in the location on the square.

“I’ve been here so long, I’m the only one here with a reserved parking spot. We have over 200 agents in this office, and we were guessing 35 or 40 parking spots out there at the most,” he said.

The new space will have more windows, too. Yet, he said, there are things which cannot be replaced, things he will miss.

“We don’t want to bash our new location, but clients come here, they see our big marquee out front, and they can pull right up here and hop out and step in. Whereas, in the new building… they’re either going to take an elevator or they’re going to drive up the garage. It’s just not as personal,” he said.

He had some questions about the proposed development plan but said he is not against development in general. Still, he said, as a longtime Hyde Park resident, as well as part of a neighborhood business, there is a sadness to the changes coming.

“I can see both sides to it…but it is always bittersweet, even if it’s replaced by something great, even if everybody’s for it,” he said.

Growing up in Hyde Park

Hinckley grew up in Hyde Park not far from the square. He attended Hyde Park Elementary and Withrow High School. He lives in the neighborhood in the home he made with his wife, Terri, also a Hyde Park native, and their four children. His son Jack joined him in the business about nine years ago.

“My mother came from a very small town, Gettysburg, Ohio, a town of 400 people. She was the first woman executive hired at IBM. That’s how she came to Cincinnati and met my father,” Hinckley said.

His father, a Cincinnati native, was in his family’s lumbar business. The couple first lived in East Walnut Hills but moved to Hyde Park when Michael was about five years old. His parents became well-known throughout the city for their community support and involvement in the cultural arts.

Helen Hinckley, his mother, served on several boards and committees for the Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Ballet, Playhouse in the Park, the Junior League and other organizations, but she is perhaps best known for her work as a Cincinnati city council member from 1974 to 1977. She was the Enquirer Woman of the Year in 1983.

His mom, he said, was not like most of the other mothers he knew. She was active and outwardly focused and not much interested in the domestic arts like cooking.

“In the late 90s, we were selling the family home in Hyde Park. My father had died, and my mother was moving to a condo, and she called me to ask how it was going…and I said, ‘Well, mom, people don’t like the kitchen.’ Now, this was 1998, and her response was, we just redid it in ‘59 and it’s hardly been used…It was just not her thing,” he said.

Hinckley said he loved growing up in Hyde Park with his parents, brother and sister. He said he loved being able to walk to and from school. Because he had a large yard, it became a go-to location for class picnics and afterschool fun.

Warm memories of the square

Hinckley began his career with Parchman and Oyler in 1978 in a location very near the square. The business was acquired by Coldwell Banker in 1981. The company later also took over West Shell and relocated the office to Hyde Park Square in about 1998.

Looking out onto the square, Hinckley noted some of the businesses that have come and gone – some of them from his childhood days and others from those earlier days of his business.

“That building across the street, Fazel Rug Gallery, that used to be a movie theater. Next to it was the [Hyde Park] Five and Dime where you got your candy before the movie,” he said.

He recalled Potters Shoe Store also on the square where you got a balloon every time you got new shoes there, he added.

“There were four drug stores here on the square — Herman’s Drugs, Park Pharmacy, Decker Drugs, which had a soda jerk fountain…When I went to Withrow High School, I’d walk home this way to stop and have a milkshake, and visit with friends,” he said.

Only Tischbein Pharmacy remains although it has moved off the square, he added. He still goes there to support the Hyde Park institution and one of the city’s last independent pharmacies.

The square is noted for its many food choices, and Hinckley agreed it is great to still have historic favorites, The Echo and, of course, Graeter’s. Still, he said, he misses some of the places to eat including the Blue Bird Dining Room and Pasquale’s pizza. Next door to his office was Lippet’s Bakery and close by was the Erie Avenue Fresh Food Market.

Jack Hinckley, who now lives in Anderson with his wife and three children, has warm memories of growing up in the area and of the square as well. He attended Cardinel Pacelli before heading off to Moeller High School.

“When I was probably nine or 10 years old … I rode my bike all up and down the area, ran around in here [in his dad’s office] as a child and all through high school. I helped around the office once I got my license, putting signs up, taking photos of houses, things like that. So I kind of grew up in this building. I think we’re both a little sad about it…because it feels like home to us every day,” he said.

“When it came to working here, I knew what I was signing up for more than most people probably did in any profession. I grew up with a father who did it every day. I went to the office that I used to play in as a child. It just has been second nature,” he added.

Changes in the industry

Despite many ups and downs in the housing and real estate market, including the housing bubble and the Covid pandemic, Hinckley said his business has weathered the storms well. It pays to be well-established and a trusted part of the community.

Technology has changed the industry significantly, he said.

“When I started, we didn’t have the internet. We had multiple listing books that we received every two weeks. If you had a buyer, and they wanted to see what was for sale, you’d actually take the book to their house and you’d say, ‘Here it is, four in the afternoon, I need this back in the morning to take to another buyer,’” he explained.

Unlike today where home buyers can look online at multiple photos of an entire house for sale, the books had only minimal information.

“It was a blurb about the house with a front picture and a little write-up,” he said. “You had to go see the house to know how good the kitchen was, or to see the decor, or to see if the basement’s really finished…You’d schedule an appointment to see it, and we didn’t even have lock boxes then, so you drove from realtor office to realtor office to get a key.”

Things may be easier now — and certainly the pace is much faster.

“When they say things are so much faster now, they definitely are and so much easier, because you can do contracts electronically. You can do it at any hour. Back in the day, when I first started, there were no cell phones yet, and so you had an office phone, and that’s where your clients called you and left a message on your office phone’s recording system.”

When the office closed at 5 p.m., you were done for the day, Hinckley said. You could enjoy your evenings uninterrupted for the most part.

“You’d think that all this technology would make things so much simpler, and it does, but it’s harder to say ‘I’m home for the night, and I have no business. I’m going to fall asleep here while reading a book,’” he said.

Nowadays at any time he could get a text about an offer on a house, and is usually only a window of only a couple of hours to respond.

Jack Hinckley added that even in the time he has been in the business, things have sped up. When he first started, he said, he was comfortable asking a client what their schedule was like the next day to go see a house listed for sale. Now, he will get a text about a listing and will have to hit the ground running as soon as possible. Tomorrow may be too late.

“I keep my car keys in my pocket because if I have to go show you a house, I gotta go. Sorry, if it’s the middle of dinner, whatever it is, I’m out the door like a doctor on call,” the younger Hinckley added.

While things are much more streamlined and home buyers have much more information at their fingertips, the time pressure is always on. Hinckley said today it is not that unusual for long distance buyers to purchase a house before ever stepping foot in it. It’s all done over the internet with Facetime and similar apps.

Because of this, Hinckley said, it’s important to give the buyer every bit of information you can on a house — the good and the bad. It’s about integrity. He wants his clients to love their house but also he wants to help them make an informed decision, leaving nothing out.

“It’s all about the customer, so we’re facetiming with people, and we’re showing them every crack… We want them to be happy when they buy it and not think that we missed telling them that the front stoop is falling off…” he said.

More than a financial investment

When his son joined the business, Hinckley said many thought he might be preparing for retirement, but he has no plans to do that any time soon, he said. He still loves what he does.

“As my wife tells people, Mike’s not in the real estate business, he’s possessed by it, and that’s okay. It’s true,” Hinckley said.

With almost 50 years in the business and a lifetime in the community, he said, he wants to share his decades of knowledge with his clients and neighbors.

“For many, buying a house is the largest purchase of their life. It’s a big emotional investment, and there’s a lot of nuances to it,” he said.

Hinckley said he remains a happy and proud Hyde Park resident and will still take morning walks on the square, visit the shops and spend weekend time at the Hyde Park Farmer’s Market. Still, even though the move is only a short distance, he said he will miss his office on the square.

“It’s sad, you know, it’s like when people are sad about moving from their house. Our answer to them is you take your memories with you,” he said.