Joseph D. Oliver House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Joseph D. Oliver House
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U.S. Historic district
Contributing property |
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Front and side of the house
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 Location in Indiana
Location in the United States
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| Location | 808 W. Washington Ave., South Bend, Indiana |
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| Area | 2.6 acres (1.1 ha) |
| Built | 1895 |
| Architect | Lamb & Rich; Alice E. Neale |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne |
| Part of | West Washington Historic District (ID75000049) |
| NRHP reference No. | 73000043 |
| Added to NRHP | August 28, 1973 |
The Joseph D. Oliver House, also known as Copshaholm, is a grand old mansion in South Bend, Indiana. You can find it at 808 W. Washington Street, right on the corner of Chapin Street. This amazing house was built for the Oliver family. They were famous for starting the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, which made farm tools. The house's name, Copshaholm, comes from a small village in Scotland. This village was where the Oliver family's ancestors lived. Today, the house is a special place listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Copshaholm was built between 1895 and 1896. It's a huge house with 38 rooms! It was designed in a style called Queen Anne, with some Romanesque touches. A New York architect named Charles Alonzo Rich designed it. What's really cool is that almost all the furniture and decorations on all three floors are original. This means when you visit, you get to see exactly how the Oliver family lived for 72 years!
Inside Copshaholm, you'll see beautiful woodwork made from oak, cherry, and mahogany. There are also special windows made with leaded glass. The house has 14 unique fireplaces, each one different from the others. The rooms are filled with lovely things like porcelain, glass, silver, and bronze statues. Some of these art pieces were made by famous artists like Bartolozzi and Lorado Taft. All the furniture is original and shows off amazing antique styles.
Outside the house, there are about 2.5 acres (10,000 square meters) of beautiful gardens. You can explore a cute garden tea house, a fancy Italian-style garden, and a sweet-smelling rose garden. There's also a covered walkway called a pergola, a tennis lawn, and a pretty fountain. It's a wonderful place to imagine life in the past!
Contents
Discovering the House's Design
The Joseph D. Oliver House was designed by a company called Lamb and Rich from New York City. They worked together from 1882 to 1903. The house shows off the popular Queen Anne style. It also has strong features from the Romanesque style, which makes it look grand and solid.
Special Garden Features
The beautiful pergola and the Italian sunken garden were designed by Alice E. Neale. She was also from New York City. These parts of the garden add to the house's elegant look.
Building Materials and Structure
The house has three main floors and an attic. The basement and the first two floors are built with Indiana fieldstone granite. This stone was collected from the countryside around St. Joseph County. The large pillars on the porch are made from Vermont stone. The third floor and the attic are covered with tiles. The roof is simple, with gabled ends and a tall tower on the northeast corner. At the back of the house, there's a part that sticks out with dormer windows. The music room and the den are separate, one-story sections.
Old-Fashioned Systems
When the house was first built, it had both electricity and gas pipes. The gas system has been removed over time. However, you can still see some of the original gas jets in place. The house's water system was also quite interesting. It used two wells to pump water up to a large tank in the attic. Then, gravity would send the water down to all the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the laundry room. This old system is still used today, with the help of modern holding tanks.
