Italian Renaissance Mansion, Garden & Estate w/ Storied Past

About the Space

A place of rest, wonder, curiosity, leisure, and hospitality. Our home was built in 1915 by an illustrious architect, Lee Burns, comissioned by the Evans family of Indianapolis, who were successful in the flour mill industry. The 1920s issues of the Indianapolis Star is full of accounts of their society lives here, weddings, engagements, baby showers, parties, and gatherings that made the house a living part of the city. We lived in the neighborhood for seven years before buying the house four years ago. During the pandemic, we would take long walks past it and dream about raising our family here, and bringing new life to it after it sat abandoned for years. A few years later, astonishingly, that dream became ours. When we moved in, there was no running water, no air conditioning, no washer or dryer, no dishwasher. We spent six months restoring the house. Then, after one grand Christmas party in December 2022, we came home in January and everything had changed. The house looked like a scene from Jumanji. It was raining-- inside. A pipe had burst on the third floor and poured through the house, destroying nearly half of it, destroying almost everything we owned, and displacing our family for two years. What followed was another restoration, this time painstaking and almost obsessive. We sought out artisans from across Indiana and across the country, and materials from around the world, to restore the house to its former glory and more, while making it functional for a modern family. We live here. It is our family home. Hospitality is at the heart of how we live, and we also use this place as a means of building a civic renaissance in our world, an era of multidimensional human flourishing. We love sharing the home with artists, designers, creators, hosts, thinkers, and people who care about beauty, hospitality, craftsmanship, the creative process, joy, and human potential. If that sounds like you, we would love to hear what you are imagining and explore how we might bring your vision to life, whether for a wedding, fashion show, photo or film shoot, intimate dinner, gathering, salon, or something we have not imagined yet. The house brings together the best of antiquity with the needs of modern life. It is also a 1915 home, which means it has character, quirks, and spaces that are entirely its own. Every engagement is therefore custom tailored. The listed hourly rate is not a flat rate for use of the entire estate. Access to individual rooms, multiple floors, gardens, outdoor spaces, preparation areas, furnishings, and other parts of the property is discussed and negotiated in advance so that the experience fits your vision, your production, and the needs of our family home. In restoring our home, we placed particular honor on materials, craftsmanship, quality, and integrity. Those values shape the way we live here too. We cannot wait to welcome you into our home and, perhaps, build a renaissance together.