Wylie House Museum

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Introduction

When Rebecca Wylie died in 1913, her three remaining children decided to sell the house. Theodorus, or Dory, was by that time a widower and no longer lived in Bloomington. Margaret, or Maggie, was a widow living in Pittsburgh, Kansas near one of her sons. Louisa, who had lived with her parents since 1884 when she was widowed, wanted to move to Arlington, Massachusetts to be near her daughter and grandchildren.

In 1915, Dr. Amos S. Hershey, a professor of political science at IU bought the house from the heirs. He and his wife, Lillian, made the first significant changes to the house as far as we know. Besides modernizing the kitchen and bath room and putting in a furnace, they enclosed the second storey porch, making it into a sunroom and they removed the ground floor pantry and screened it and the ground floor front porch. They also added a pedimented awning with brackets over the front door and a small slanted roof over the east door into the kitchen.

The Wylie House prior to its restoration.

In 1947, the widow Mrs. Hershey sold the house to IU. The trustees agreed to let her live in the house another 4 years, until 1951. From 1951 until 1959, IU Press was housed in the home. Then, starting in 1961, IU undertook a complete restoration of the house. The intent was to restore the house to its original configuration when it was built in 1836. The photographs in this digital exhibit document what the house looked like just prior to that restoration and the process of restoration.

Click on the thumbnails to get a larger view of each picture.

The Wylie House before the restoration, in the late 1950s. This shot of the front and western side of the house taken during the summer shows how overgrown the property had become. In this photo the widow's walk has already been removed.

Front view of the Wylie House taken in about 1960. You can see several of the changes that the Hershey family made, including the fountain in the yard, the pedimented awning above the front door, and the screened-in porch to the right.

This image, also from about 1960, shows the east side of the house and screened-in porch prior to restoration. The door to the porch is where the restored pantry will be located.

At the time of the restoration, it was believed this back porch had been added years after the house was built. Based on that belief, the decision was made to remove the porch.

Two men re-bricking the second-story back porch door.

The upper-level back door re-bricking process, taken outside from the ground.

The completed re-bricked wall above the back porch.

The central brick wall of the house had to be taken entirely down and rebuilt. This image shows the upper hallway with that wall removed and the plaster stripped from the walls. The main staircase from the first floor is in the foreground with the upper hall banister. The door leads into the northwest bedroom.

This image shows workmen rebuilding the central brick wall on the west end of the dining room. The main staircase is just visible behind the newly rebuilt wall.

The entire exterior of the house was repointed to correct deteriorating mortar joints. This image shows a close up of that process.

These two workmen are shown repointing the west and south faces of the house.

This is an image of the room above the kitchen, with the stair banister just visible on the left side. Workmen had to rebrick above or below many of the windows of the house and this image shows what that entailed.

The front of the house during the restoration. The trellises and awning have been removed, and restoration of the porch just begun.

To restore the front porches, the roof was first supported and then the entire porch structure was removed.

Another view of the front porch during restoration.

Looking west at reconstructed front porches with new framing in place.

Looking east, from the lower portion of front porches during reconstruction.

The upper and lower pantries were put back as research had shown they existed before the Hershey's alterations. This image shows the framing for those rooms in place.

The east wall at the ground level, where the reconstructed pantry is located. Two workmen are adding siding or clapboards.

The kitchen before plastering, facing south toward the doors.

The house after restoration, about 1965. In 2004, the exterior trim color was changed from white to buff with dark green shutters.