Posted in: Sunday Prayers Sunday Prayers: 2015 N. Senate Ave.

 We meet again, plywood. Once more you grace the windows of an aged Victorian. Though you mark a property as uninhabited, you blend into the beige paint. I hardly notice you. No, I pay heed...

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Posted in: WTH WTH Wednesday: Catastrophe Cottage

This undoubtedly started life as a cute cottage. But like a gremlin that had water spilled on it, it’s gone from cute to catastrophic–and seems to have multiplied itself. When you have a love for...

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Posted in: WTH WTH: How Lowes Can You Go?

Pre-fab/ mass produced doors and windows are to quaint historic homes what a piece of pre-masticated chewing gum is (as a filler) to a smile with a missing tooth: unbecoming and fooling no one. Imagine...

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Posted in: WTH WTH Weds: Won’t you (not) be my Neighbor?

Something is missing here, and it’s not just windows. There’s got to be a back-story–perhaps some long, drawn out Hatfields vs. McCoys level animosity between neighbors? …Because wow: why would you remove most all windows...

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Posted in: WTH WTH: The Blizzard Edition

All the blizzard talk got us thinking about highly fortified domiciles–and what will protect dwellers from one unsavory element will work against many. This little number on Boulevard shares similarities of many WTH’s: disproportionately small...

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Posted in: Then & Now Indianapolis Then & Now: Von Spreckelsen Cottage/Cottage Home Community Space 722 N. Highland Avenue

This charming Folk Victorian cottage was built at 722 N. Highland Avenue in the 1880s by carpenter John Amandus von Spreckelsen (1859-1933). The German-born carpenter came from a family of plaster workers, carpenters, and contractors....

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Posted in: WTH WTH Weds: Balconette Comes Up Short

We can think of at least 47 occasions where a wrought iron balconette is appropriate and necessary—eighteen inches off the ground on a Victorian cottage did not make our list. Pertinent Address: Lexington Avenue, Fountain...

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Posted in: Friday Favorites Friday Favorite: Gothic Revival, 1925 North Central Avenue

**update**This was originally titled as French Gothic, but after Tim Jensen’s comment, we have reconfirmed with our resident Architectural Historian, Raina Regan that it is indeed a Gothic Revival. So, replacing French Gothic with the...

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Posted in: Sunday Prayers Sunday Prayers: Demo List House on Woodlawn

Was wandering around Fountain Square and other parts east of the Mile Square earlier this week (more  foreshadowing: got an upcoming article about why my next house in Indianapolis would be in Fountain Square) and...

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Posted in: Sunday Prayers Sunday Prayers: A Cottage For a Herron-Morton Home

This dear little Herron-Morton Place cottage was likely built when the smells from the State Fair undoubtedly wafted over this roofline. Yes, it borders a small east-west alley and is next to a parking lot...

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