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Historic Homes

Welcome to Crown Point’s 
Historical Walking Tour.

Take a virtual tour through the historic residential streets of Crown Point.

This English Tudor Revival, a brick house with steep roof and round turret, was built c: 1929.  The architect of this house designed several about Crown Point.  Arnold Koll, the local baker, was an early resident of this fortress like house.  The brick fireplace has terra cotta tiles, and each room has a different stucco wall patterns.  Wood trim and cedar flooring are throughout.

445 South Clark Street

A historic gabled-ell gothic revival trimmed in clapboard with various window treatments, this old house is believed to have been built in 1858, but courthouse records list 1879.  The Grimmer family lived here for 55 years.  Mr. Grimmer was the first school teacher in St. John and rode his horse there each day.   Grimmer middle school in Dyer is named after this early educator.  The current owner since 1968 is not interested in selling her unique old house and is annoyed with prospective buyers and requests privacy.  Note the exterior woodwork, the various window arches, the carriage step at the curb and surviving horse ring.  This is only one of three surviving antebellum houses along The First Walk.

One of the oldest surviving homes "intact" in Lake County, this house trimmed in clapboard was built in 1847 by Wellington A. Clark and is a listing in the National Register of Historic Landmarks.  Wellingston A Clark arrived in Crown Point during the 1830's from New York State.  Clark Street is named after this early family.  The Old Homestead is currently undergoing a community-wide restoration.

This landmark house, a Colonial Revival, was built c: 1925 by William Letz (1881-1961) the son of a prosperous local manufacturer of farm machinery.   Louis Holland Letz, his father, a German immigrant had established Letx Manufacturing in 1884 and by 1894 won a gold medal prize at the World's Fair in Chicago for the Letz Feed Grinder.  The living room exhibits a 40" x 30" mural by Schultz, an artist from Valparaiso, that was commissioned by the Letz family.  Note the ornate capitals, flat tile roof shingles and copper gutters.  An earlier house had once stood on this location, the home of John Luther who had been an early settler in Crown Point.

This gabled/Italianete house built c: 1860 rests upon an older log cabin that dates back to the Solon Robinson (the founder of Crown Point) settlement c: 1830's.  Long known as the Cheshire-Collins house and recently renovated by the Knesek family in 1996, this home was built by William W. Cheshire, a native of North Carolina who came to Indiana in 1858.  He was a co-proprietor of Crown Point's Cheshire Hall.  Mrs. Cheshire, (Bessie Boone) was a first cousin to Daniel Boone.  This charming house was moved five inches in 1870 by a powerful tornado which tore off the roof and chimney and survived an 1890 fire which cause heavy damage.  The Ox eye window was restored in the 1996 restorations having been missing since the 1890 fire.

This fanciful Queen Anne house more than any other in Crown Point has fascinated local residents young and old.  This house was built c: 1890 for Flora Norton Biggs the widow of James H. Biggs of Cincinnati.  Biggs had been engaged in real estate and was a dealer for the United States Cotton Press and Hay Press.   Flora was the daughter of Aaron Hart and Martha Reed Dyer who were the largest land owners in Lake County before the turn-of-the-20th-century.  Flora's mother had built the neighboring home at 105 E. South Street for Malcolm and Maquerit Hart, her brother and sister-in-law.  Perhaps the longest and best known resident of this house was the late Lillian Holley who died at the age of 102 in 1994.  Mrs. Holley was a patron of the Old Lake County Courthouse, and the large clocks in the central tower were restored to working order because of her generosity during the nation's bicentennial.

This Queen Anne style house built c: 1895 originally clapboard and covered with shingles, and today seen as a painted lady, features original dental work trim under the eaves.  The Heritage roof replaces a shaker original.  The iron fence in the front garden is original.  The fieldstone marker's origins are unknown and are not visible in the view of a 1907 photo by Vilmer of this house.  Parquet flooring in this house is very similar to those in Bon Appetit/Fifield Mansion as they are to that in the Lillian Holley House.

An imposing Queen Anne painted lady built in c: 1895, perhaps the town's finest example of Queen Anne architecture with Free Classic elements.  The image of this house is now painted on an ornamental glass bulb that the Greater Crown Point Chamber issued in 1997.  The nine room home was built for David A. Root, his wife Carrie Dyer Root and son Clayton.  The Roots descend from a colonial American family that had arrived in New England in 1635.  David A. Root established Root Lumber Co. in 1892.  This house was the setting for many fine social events in Crown Point, such as Fortnightly Musicale Society.  Michael Lunn, a fifth generation Root family member, recently bought the house from his mother, Judith Root Stiles.

More historical homes will be added to this page.
Contact us at mail@crownpoint.net if you'd like to have your Crown Point home featured.