Blair-Dunning House

About this property

The Blair–Dunning House is a historic house on the west side of Bloomington, Indiana, United States. Built in the 1820s as a farmhouse, it now lies at the heart of one of the city's neighborhoods, and it is one of Bloomington's most prominent houses. Once the home of the Governor of Indiana, it has been designated a historic site. The first settler on the grounds of the present house was Robertson Graham, who began farming there in 1817. He inhabited the land for a short time, selling it to the town of Bloomington in 1819. Construction of the Blair–Dunning House was a gradual process that lasted from 1822 to 1845, costing approximately $1,200. Its builder and first resident, Enos Blair, was one of Monroe County's most prominent citizens: among the area's first settlers, he served as the first jailer for the city of Bloomington and later held the offices of sheriff and Justice of the peace. Blair died in 1845; over the next twenty years, the house passed through many hands, including those of state representatives Elias Abel and Ransom Akin. The original part of the Blair–Dunning House is a rectangular brick structure with a stone foundation, two stories tall and covered with a gabled roof. It is a linear quadruple-pen structure, measuring far longer east–west than north–south. Because the house occupies a hilly lot, the foundation under the front of the house is visible above the surface of the ground. Prominent elements of the exterior include large rectangular double-hung windows with limestone sills and lintels, a frieze with cornice, and corbelled chimneys on the eastern and western ends. The various elements of the house's design combine to form a structure that mixes the Greek Revival and Federal styles of architecture. When the house was built, its front door faced north; this situation changed in the late 1860s, when wings were added both to the northern side and to the southern side of the original portion. As a result, the size of the house nearly doubled, and its main entrance was moved to the eastern end of the original house. Both additions are single-story structures with an individual room that measures 26 by 18 feet (7.9 by 5.5 m). Architecturally, they closely resemble the original portion of the house, with brick walls, corbelling, gabled roofs, stone window sills and lintels, and end chimneys. Inside, the Blair–Dunning House is primarily a wooden building; yellow poplar wood is used throughout the building. Among the distinctive elements of the six-room interior are baseboards 18 inches (460 mm) tall, fireplaces in every room with massive mantels, and ceilings 11 feet (3.4 m) high, and a basement.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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