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East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati — Area Guide & Where to Stay
East Walnut Hills climbs the ridge east of downtown Cincinnati, gathered around DeSales Corner where Madison Road crosses Woodburn Avenue.
About East Walnut Hills
Where to stay in East Walnut Hills
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
The choice here runs between DeSales Corner and the older streets below it. Woodburn Avenue holds the restaurants and the storefronts, so a bed near the corner puts dinner a few doors away and the Madison Road buses into downtown Cincinnati a few more. Hackberry Street and East McMillan Street stay residential, lined with brick and stone houses standing since the 1840s.
Traffic on Madison never stops.
About East Walnut Hills
What are the main landmarks in East Walnut Hills?
DeSales Corner takes its name from the church at Madison Road and Woodburn Avenue. The Charlton Wallace House at 2563 Hackberry Street was built in 1840 for French-born monks, and it became the rectory of St. Francis de Sales Church nine years later, which makes it older than the neighbourhood that grew around it. The Bernard H. Moormann House followed in 1860, brick and Italianate, five bays across the front.
Both carry National Register listings.
What is the history of East Walnut Hills?
Woodburn was an incorporated village before it was a Cincinnati neighbourhood. It was founded in 1867 by German Catholic families and by businessmen putting country estates on the ridge, and the city annexed it six years later. Streetcars made the place and then unmade it: when Columbia Parkway opened in 1938 along the river below, the drive downtown got short enough that the east side lines collapsed.
Woodburn Avenue still carries the name.
Where is East Walnut Hills?
Madison Road runs the spine of the ridge east of downtown, with Woodburn Avenue climbing to meet it and the Ohio valley falling away south.
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More areas in Cincinnati
Updated September 2026