Located on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Oldfields-Lilly House & Gardens is a 26-acre country estate built by businessman Hugh McKennan Landon and dating back to the 1910s.
Most of the first floor rooms in the Lilly House have been restored to their 1930s appearance, with 90% original furnishings and decorative accessories. Behold the powder blue formal dining room:
The drawing room features hand-painted Chinese wallpaper panels:
The Georgian-style library is an appropriately stately room with dark wood paneling and built-in bookcases:
The great hall is the centerpiece of the restored first floor of the house:
The kitchen is pure 1930s high-tech:
The loggia is a lovely transitional space between the house and the outdoors, with landscape murals by Douglas Riseborough, dating back to the 1950s:
This circular staircase leads to the second floor which is used as a temporary exhibit space:
What was once a country estate is now in the heart of Indianapolis:
The landscaping was designed by Percival Gallagher in the 1920s. I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos of the various gardens but, trust me, they are as lovely as the mansion:
I really enjoy house museums, perhaps even more so now that I own a house. I’ve visited several over the past few years, and the two that warrant a mention here are the Bartow-Pell Mansion in the Bronx, which is an older country estate, and the Boettcher Mansion, a 1917 summer home in the mountains just outside of Denver.
Department of Everyday Visualingual 