Eli Lilly and the Restoration of the Conner House
Author: Stephen L. Cox, Former Conner Prairie Historian
In the years following William and Elizabeth Conner's residence, the Conner house was more than likely occupied by some of the couple's children or by tenant farmers. In the 1860s Conner's Delaware children failed in an attempt to gain title to the property. The land passed out of Conner hands in 1871 and went through several owners before Indianapolis businessman Eugene Darrach purchased it in 1915. Although Darrach may have attempted preliminary restoration work, the house continued to deteriorate.
In 1934 Eli Lilly, Indianapolis businessman, president of the Indiana Historical Society and long-time friend of Indiana history, purchased the house and property. In so doing, the always vigorous Lilly combined his historical pursuits with his interest in farming.
When Lilly purchased the simple yet impressive house of William and Elizabeth Conner, the structure teetered on destruction, as years of neglect had taken their toll. Indeed, Lilly asked to obtain possession of the house sooner than the agreed upon date of January, 1935 because "one of the walls is badly bulged and we are rather in a hurry to keep it from falling down." Lilly's goals were to save the house from complete ruin and to restore it to its once dignified condition. But to do either he knew he had to act quickly because the roof leaked, the walls bulged and the kitchen beams and floor were thoroughly rotted. In addition, much of the the exterior brick work needed replacing, while a "ramshackle wooden room" attached to the southeast corner of the house sometime in the nineteenth century seriously detracted from the simple elegance of the structure.
Once he obtained possession of the the Conner house, Lilly began planning the restoration as if it were a military campaign. And, like a good general, he devoted time to researching, planning, and charting his course before he began the crucial work. He made it clear to a friend that nothing would be attempted "until we have done all the reading there is to be done" on the subject of preservation. Lilly immersed himself in the literature of restoration methods--in the 1930s very little existed--and he relied on the advice of friends, including E. Y. "Dick" Guernsey, amateur archeologist and Indiana state representative; architect Robert R. Daggett; and contractor Charles Latham.
Under the watchful eyes of Daggett and Latham, workmen made the necessary improvements to the Conner house, while Lilly continued to research, seek advice, and explore possibilities with a number of people. Workers dug a four foot trench under the original foundation--which went only 18 inches into the ground--and filled it with concrete. They then reset much of the old foundation which was crumbling in parts and replaced cracked bricks with those taken from "a tumbled down farmhouse" in the vicinity. Workers also replaced the roof and removed the unsightly "ramshackle wooden room". Latham shored up the bulging walls by bracing them from the outside, forcing them into their original positions, and then fastening them with iron tie rods.
The interior of the house, like the exterior, demanded prompt attention. Lilly and his coterie of advisors concluded--after "peeling off several layers of hideous paper"--that the walls had been finished with a tinted whitewash. Based on what his advisors told him, Lilly concluded that originally one room was blue, the hall green, and the dining room pink, "about the shades Italian houses would be painted on the outside!" Because the walls were seriously damaged, Lilly had them replastered and eventually repainted to match the original colors.
The kitchen, undoubtedly in the worst condition of any of the rooms, was completely redone, including the floor which quite literally was rotting away. At one point, the fireplace had been bricked over. When he removed the bricks, Lilly discovered a "nest" of three fireplaces, one inside the other. After some study, he concluded that the "nest" was a later addition and had all but the largest eliminated.
Even though historic preservation was in its infancy during the 1930s, Lilly did all he could to familiarize himself with the aims, objectives, and techniques of these early ventures. For instance, he traveled to Williamsburg where he witnessed the fruits of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s restoration of Virginia's colonial capital. This and similar projects reinforced Lilly's own developing "preservation ethic" and, throughout the restoration, he did his best to supply the house with what he thought were important connections with the past. Given Lilly's background and broad interest in the study of history--especially Indiana history--he undoubtedly was more sophisticated than most when it came to understanding the geographical and social complexities that existed in the culture. And, it is apparent that he understood that these differences were historically based. Even his advisors shared Lilly's discriminating historical and cultural sensibilities. Guernsey, for instance, advised Lilly not to purchase inappropriate items; all furniture for the Conner house "should be typically pioneerish--of cherry, or maple, or both in combination." Lilly himself turned down a Queen Anne mirror and a "Chippendale type table" offered by a Williamsburg antique dealer because the pieces were "a little too 'Eastern' for our more or less backwoods place, and we feel we have to confine ourselves to cherry and maple. . . ."
This historical sensitivity apparently did not extend to all aspects of the restoration. Clearly, Lilly was inconsistent in his approach to refurbishing the Conner house. While he eschewed Queen Anne mirrors, he did purchase "crinkled" colonial window glass, an inappropriate item for an 1823 central Indiana house. Much of the hardware for the house and some of the furnishings were vintage Williamsburg. In fact, the entire kitchen was done over in a clearly "colonial revival" style, a style prominent and popular in the grim atmosphere of the 1930s depression decade. One of the kitchen showpieces included a clockjack that, while intriguing, was clearly of an eighteenth-century design and, in all likelihood, was not used by Conner. Other eighteenth-century colonial revival affectations were added, including an enormous well cover that evoked colonial Williamsburg more than it did early 19th-century Indiana. The most notable alteration to the house was Lilly's addition of a massive six-columned porch that overlooked the "prairie" and White River. His friend and advisor, Dick Guernsey, encouraged Lilly to proceed with the addition: "Like you," Guernsey wrote, "I should say a front porch would be quite desirable, more especially because of the charming view from it. If I wanted it, I'd add it--whether the original structure had one or not." Years later Lilly acknowledged that the porch was not historically accurate, but the western view of the farmland was enhanced from the porch, and he "could not resist the temptation of enjoying to the fullest the Fields of the Merry Plowmen."
Ultimately, Lilly may have "restored" the Conner house, but restored it to what? He salvaged it and saved it from ruin--a significant feat for the 1930s--and he understood that he was transforming a crumbling, decaying farm house in Hamilton County into a historical showpiece for the entire state. Through his efforts, he managed to take the house and the grounds back to "the past", but to an undefined, pioneer past that lacked coherence or texture.
True, Lilly was inconsistent in his approach to restoring the Conner house, but it is unfair from the vantage point of the late twentieth century to criticize him or to hold him accountable for making innocent assumptions that were no different from notions most others held sixty years ago. Historic restoration was only then getting off the ground and what Lilly did in the mid-1930s was quite acceptable, even laudable and pathbreaking. To recognize an historically significant structure and then to save it from destruction were major achievements. Only a few lonely trailblazers existed on the preservation frontier in the 1930s and Indiana was fortunate that one man's dedicated efforts were directed toward preserving an important piece of the state's history, even if the final results deviated from a complete and accurate representation of the 1820s. Clearly, Eli Lilly's restored Conner house served in the decades to follow as a shining example of what historic preservation might offer a society that for years found it expedient to tear down old, dilapidated structures that supposedly had outlived their usefulness.