a piece of history

Sitting at 519 N. College Ave. is a red brick house believed to be the second oldest house in Monroe County.\nThe home, which was first constructed in 1829, has always been residence to well-to-do Bloomington families and IU notables, including former President William Lowe Bryan and Herman B Wells during the first 25 years of his presidency.\nIt is this history that led the IU Alumni Association to begin the process of placing the Woodburn House on the National Register of Historic Places.\nDottie Warmbier, IUAA's director of merchandising, spearheads the care of the Woodburn House.\nShe said the registry appraised the house and rated it "O" for "outstanding."\nThe importance of the house has been recognized by many officials.\nAt a 1983 reception hosted by then-IU President John W. Ryan, Chancellor Emeritus Wells spoke lovingly of the structure.\n"Sustained by modernized innards, resplendent in its new decor, amplified by the south garden, may the Woodburn House go from event to event, proud of its mission and certain of the usefulness of its role in the life of an ancient and distinguished University," Wells said.\nThe original 1829 structure was two rooms, each heated by a fireplace. The one-story house had the two rooms in the middle of the lower half of the present-day structure. Behind the two rooms was a kitchen. Northwest of the main rooms was a whitewashed three-sided "lean-to" serving as a bedroom which, in keeping with the time of the pioneer days, was unheated.\n"I myself remember, after the house was enlarged, leaving the warm fireside and going upstairs to bed in a cold room, undress and getting into bed between cold sheets," said Dr. James A. Woodburn in a 1934 letter to Wells recounting the architectural history of the house. "In the morning I would have to break the ice in the pitcher to get water for the bowl to bath my face."\nThe house was bought by the Woodburn family in 1855 for what Woodburn remembered as being $1,200. And the purchase didn't buy just the house -- but the entire city block surrounded by Ninth and Tenth Streets, College Avenue and Morton Street. The Woodburn family made some renovations while living there for three generations and 70 years.\nIn 1858-59, when William Mitchel Daily was IU president, the Woodburns built a front and a back porch and raised the house making it two stories. The front addition contained the parlor and a front hall with a large bedroom over the parlor and small bedroom over the hall, said Woodburn in his letter to Wells.\nIn 1938, when Wells became president, he remained in the house telling outgoing president Bryan to stay in the traditional president's house -- now called Bryan House, which sits in a grassy knoll near Ballantine and Morrison Halls -- as a courtesy. Wells remained in the house until 1957, five years before his 1962 retirement as president.\nWells said he "did all the social things a president does (in the Woodburn house)." The place underwent a few changes during the Wells era.\nIn an additional wing, two rooms and a bath were added and the two previous open porches were closed. \nThe house, managed by the IUAA since 1976, has undergone renovations designed to maintain its historic richness while making it a useful part of the University culture. Recently the University Architect and Physical Plant made some renovations and restorations where some bricks of the house were repaired.\nMembers of the physics department took some of the soft mortar and analyzed it. They created a formula to duplicate the more-than-century old mortar to hold together remade clay bricks, a common building material of the era. Around Bloomington at the time there was so much clay, it was cheaper to make bricks on-site than use timber.\nThe house contains furnishings from the time period coming from many sources including the Bryan estate, donors, and in several cases, Wells himself. In an upstairs bedroom over the parlor is the bed of "Mother Wells" who lived with the late chancellor. Also off the bedroom is a study used by Wells including his desk and cameras used on Wells' international travels. All sorts of books and journals are there too, taken from the Tenth Street residence Wells lived in during the last years of his life now occupied by IU-Bloomington Chancellor Sharon Brehm. Warmbier said Wells was a lover of all things old and antique. He also never seems to have thrown much away, she said. \nIn a closet in the bedroom once occupied by his mother are some pieces of clothing including a tuxedo, a charcoal gray tweed suit, a hat and cane, and the Santa suit Wells wore at Christmas when he visited staff and students of the Bloomington campus. \nA straw hat found in the closet is still in immaculate condition and still has the $5 price tag from Sullivan's on Washington Street. Found in the jacket of the gray and black-specked suit is a little note written by one of Wells aides. The note said where the jacket was too tight in the waist and that the suit fit best when "HBW's weight is 224." The note was dated 1993. \nThat's the kind of detail the IUAA uses to ensure the historic truthfulness of the house the Woodburns built -- a house that has seen so much of the passing times that IU has endured.\nWarmbier said the IUAA was inspired to apply for historic registry because of the recent registry of another historic campus home. The Legg House, located at 324 S. Henderson St., is a house constructed in the 1850s and is one of the oldest homes in Bloomington.\nThe property history for the house began in 1820 as Seminary Lot #74. Later, IU President William Lowe Bryan visited his grandparents at Legg House when he was a boy. Bryan later returned to the house for meals around 1890, when the structure was a boarding house. The building, owned by IU, has been used over the years for student housing. It was vacated and boarded up in 1993 because of a lack of funds for repairs and renovation, according to a University-issued statement.\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.