The Billy Sunday Home was the residence of William A (Billy) Sunday, Helen (Ma) Sunday, their four children, and the family's live-in housekeeper and nanny. Located in the Winona Lake Historic District in Kosciusko County, Indiana, it is a prime example of a

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

built in the

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

architectural style. The Sunday family spent their summers in Winona Lake for several years prior to 1911, staying in a home called "The Illinois" located on a bluff overlooking MacDonald Island and the lake. In 1911 the family moved permanently to Winona Lake. The Illinois was lifted off its foundation and moved eastward across the street and a new bungalow was constructed in its place. The Sundays named the home Mount Hood. (They owned property in Oregon not far from

Mount Hood Mount Hood, also known as Wy'east, is an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range and is a member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast and rests in the Pacific N ...

and this was presumably the inspiration behind the name.) Many features of the home are typical of the Arts and Crafts Movement including the interior woodwork, shellacked

burlap Hessian (, ), burlap in North America, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric made of vegetable fibres, usually the skin of the jute plant or sisal leaves. It is generally used (in the crude tow form known as gunny) ...

wall treatments, light fixtures, sleeping porches, and it's exposed rafter tails and beams. It is believed that Helen Sunday was intimately involved in the interior's design. One of her favorite places in the home was the

Inglenook An inglenook or chimney corner is a recess that adjoins a fireplace. The word comes from "ingle", an old Scots word for a domestic fire (derived from the Gaelic ''aingeal''), and "nook". The inglenook originated as a partially enclosed hear ...

, a cozy seating area that surrounds the fireplace. Helen Sunday outlived all four of the children as well as her husband. By the 1950s, when Helen lived in the residence alone, the home was already becoming something of a pilgrimage site for admirers who wanted to see where the famed evangelist had lived. Helen thus began to provide informal tours of her home. In 1957, the year she died, a recording of Mrs. Sunday describing the details of the home was made and the published transcript has served to verify the fact that the home's interior, other than some rearranging, has been largely preserved as it was when she lived there.Helen Amelia Thompson Sunday, ''"Ma" Sunday still speaks: A transcription of the tape recording she made shortly before her death'' (Winona Christian Assembly, 1957). Helen willed the home, along with everything in it, to the Winona Christian Assembly. When the assembly grounds were purchased by Grace College and Theological Seminary in 1968, Mt. Hood became part of Grace Schools. Most of the manuscript materials from the home were collected by the Grace College and Seminary library and these became th
Billy Sunday Papers
the originals of which are housed in th
Morgan Library Archives
Prior to 1998, the home had never been professionally curated. With the creation of th
Village at Winona
and the renaissance of the Winona Lake Historic District, however, a professional curator was hired to oversee restoration of the home and curate a new Billy Sunday museum and visitor center, which was built near the Sunday property and opened in 2000. The visitors center educated guests about the historical significance of Billy Sunday and a team of volunteers led tours through the home. Although multiple efforts were made to organize the setup as a state-run historical site, this never materialized and when the principal donor removed funding from the operation, the museum and visitor center closed in 2010. Currently, the home is curated by th
Winona History Center at Grace College
which also offers tours.

External links

Village at Winona

Winona History Center

References

{{Reflist Buildings and structures in Kosciusko County, Indiana Bungalow architecture Historic house museums in Indiana Museums in Kosciusko County, Indiana Houses completed in 1911