The George Stumpf House is a historic residence in

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Located along Meridian Street on the southern side of the city, ''Note:'' This includes and Accompanying photographs it was started in 1870 and completed in 1872.

History

The house was built as the home of George Stumpf, a native of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

who moved to Indiana with his family in 1838. A craftsman, Stumpf was both a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

and a manufacturer of

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

s for much of his working life. As he grew older, his eyes became damaged by the strain of smithing, so he and his wife Elizabeth purchased property on South Meridian Street in northern Perry Township, which was then known as Three Notch Road. Here they built a

log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a less finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first generation home building by settlers. Eur ...

and began farming; as they prospered, they prepared to erect a brick house, but construction was delayed nearly ten years by the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. Stumpf and his wife were active in local society: they were members of Zion Evangelical Protestant Church in Indianapolis, and they participated in the establishment of the General German Protestant Orphans Home. They were the parents of eight children; after the deaths of their parents, the land was divided among all the children, with the house passing into the possession of George Stumpf II. He departed from his father's career, embarking on the manufacturing of

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

s; after his death, the house was owned by three successive generations of his descendants.

Architecture

The Stumpf House is a symmetrical two-

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

brick structure with a

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

fieldstone Fieldstone is a naturally occurring type of stone, which lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Fieldstone is a nuisance for farmers seeking to expand their land under cultivation, but at some point it began to be used as a construction mate ...

; except for a small addition to the rear that consists of a

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

and

kitchen A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...

, it is rectangular in layout. Inside, the two floors have similar

plans A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. ...

: a center hallway with a stairway is surrounded by four rooms of equal sizes. An

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

sits above the upper story. In its early years, the house was one of two buildings on the property: a small

summer house A summer house or summerhouse has traditionally referred to a building or shelter used for relaxation in warm weather. This would often take the form of a small, roofed building on the grounds of a larger one, but could also be built in a garden ...

was erected behind the main residence for the use of the farm's employees. George Stumpf chose an elaborate form of the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

style of architecture for his home. Aside from the increased height needed by its unusually high attic, the house is a textbook example of the style: it features wide

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...

with large wooden

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

, a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

ling below the attic, and rounded arch windows. Measuring five

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

wide, the facade includes shorter attic windows, a recessed entrance with a heavy wooden front door, and two large chimneys. Virtually none of the house has seen significant modifications, except for the small addition on the rear: this has seen the replacement of its original

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

window, the addition of casement and aluminum

storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmos ...

windows to the kitchen, and the enclosure of the porch. Although the house's interior deteriorated over the twentieth century, it remained one of the area's best Italianate structures. It includes many design features common to large Italianate houses in Indiana, such as the symmetrical floor plan with a five-bay facade.Peat, Wilbur.
Indiana Houses of the Nineteenth Century
'.

Indiana Historical Society The Indiana Historical Society (IHS) is one of the United States' oldest and largest historical societies and describes itself as "Indiana's Storyteller". It is housed in the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center at 450 West Ohio Street ...

, 1962, 124-125.

Recognition

In 1979, the Stumpf House was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, qualifying because of its historically significant architecture. It is one of five National Register-listed locations in Perry Township, along with the main administration building of the

University of Indianapolis The University of Indianapolis (UIndy) is a private United Methodist Church-affiliated university in Indianapolis, Indiana. It offers Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees. It was founded in 1902 as Indiana Central University and ...

, the Hanna-Ochler-Elder House, the Homecroft Historic District, and the

Old Southport High School Old Southport High School, also known as the Old Southport Middle School, is a historic high school building located at Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. It was built in 1930, and is a two-story, U-shaped, Colonial Revival style steel frame ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stumpf, George, House Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Houses completed in 1870 Italianate architecture in Indiana Houses in Indianapolis National Register of Historic Places in Indianapolis