Mary Birdsall House
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Mary Birdsall House | |
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| Location | 504 NW Fifth Street, Richmond, Indiana |
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| Coordinates | 39°50′5″N 84°54′31″W / 39.83472°N 84.90861°W |
| Built | 1859 |
| Architectural style | Italianate |
| NRHP reference No. | 99001155 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | September 23, 1999 |
The Mary Birdsall House is known as the Lauramoore Guest House & Retreat Center and is located in Richmond, Indiana. It was built in 1859 for Thomas and Mary Birdsall, a leading woman's suffragist in Indiana.[2] The Italianate brick-built house is a two-story structure standing at the corner of Northwest Fifth Street and Richmond Avenue. In 1927, the Whitewater Monthly Meeting Religious Society of Friends converted the building to a retirement home, adding on a two-story addition on the west and north sides of the building. Later, the property was given to Earlham College, and it now serves as a guest house and retreat center. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Construction of the house began in 1859. The house now known as the Lauramoore Guest House & Retreat Center (Mary Birdsall House) was built for Mary Birdsall (née Thistlethwaite) and her husband from bricks made in a kiln to the north of the house. The Italianate low-pitched roofed dwelling was completed in 1861. The architect designed a cross-shaped floor plan whose foundations included a stone cellar. The four wings of the cruciform layout incorporate American bond brickwork and cornices that are both bracketed and dentilated. All of the wings have separate staircases and chimneys, but it is the east room which is thought to have been the more formal area. This room is closest to Northwest Fifth Street and the house's entry vestibule. The first floor of the house was built on a grander scale than the second, with three-sided bay window extensions in both the east and west wings. It is said that the house design was "technologically progressive, healthy, and emancipating", reflecting the concept of "domestic architecture" advocated by Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.[2] Mary Birdsall had collaborated with Beecher and Stowe in her work for social change. Over thirty years after Mary Birdall died, the house became a retirement home. Her house was substantially modified when additional rooms were added in 1927. These new bedrooms had a new staircase and were located on the east and north parts of the building.[2][3]
