Hillforest Mansion, Aurora, Indiana

Welcome back to another edition of History in Your Own Backyard. I'm Danielle and today we're spending time in Aurora, Indiana at the Hill Force Victorian House Museum. Today we're talking with Suzanne Ulrich, the docent coordinator of the museum. Thank you so much for talking with us today. Well you're welcome. So tell me about this beautiful mansion that we're in. Well this is the home of Thomas and Sarah Gaff and the Gaff family came here from Philadelphia. They'd been in the papermaking and distilling business and there was a depression and so they sold those businesses and came out here. The first one to come was James Gaff and he was a bachelor at the time and he met this beautiful young 16 year old on the riverbank and eventually they got married. But he came here to look over the town of Aurora and then he went back to Philadelphia and two years later the whole Gaff family moved to Aurora. It was three Gaff brothers and three Gaff sisters and their mother from Scotland and Thomas and Sarah lived in town 11 years. They didn't come here with a lot of money but we think they were lured by the river and also by lower taxes and so their first venture in business here was a grocery and they lived on the second floor over that grocery and dry goods store and then the house was finished after being built in two years between 1853 and 1855 and they moved in with their three young daughters. One or two of his spinster sisters until he found them husbands and they moved out and the mother from Scotland. So the Gaff family owned the house over 70 years. Wow and I understand that there are some pieces in each room. Can you tell us a little bit about those pieces and their special ties back to the Gaff family? Sure. In this room this is the east parlor. It's like the family room of that time and so we have two pictures on the wall. One of James the brother that came here first and then he eventually married this lady over here. It's on the wall and they built the first Gaff mansion in town. It was across the street. So there there's a chair in here, a gold chair that belonged to the Gaffs and also a footstool and then in the parlor across the hallway which is the formal parlor and that was for weddings and funerals and company and there are several pieces on the wall on either side of the room. So what are some of the things that have happened in this home mansion museum throughout the years? Let me tell you about how it became a mansion of course. The Gaffs lived here 70 years and they moved out when the last daughter owned the house and she passed away of old age and so then it was sold in 1926 to the Stark family of Aurora and they owned a big furniture company here and they lived here over 20 years and then after the Starks passed away the house was sold to the VFW and this became a clubhouse for the veterans. It was a wonderful place for them to come home to. Well there wasn't anything here when they moved in so they put black and white block linoleum on the floors, they bought fire extinguishers for every room, they put a bar on the dining room and they turned rooms upstairs into apartments and rented them out to officers and their families of the VFW. So they were here eight years partying and they shared it with the community. People could have parties here. Wonderful place for the veterans to come home to and have a great time but they moved out in 1956. That was 60 years ago. House has never been empty and that's the good thing and there was a woman banker here in town and her bank was merging with the one across the street and she said wouldn't it be a show of unity between the two banks to buy Hill Forest and who were the people that bought it? They were people with some money and people that were board members of the banks and so it was purchased by these ten people in 1956 and saved and they didn't know what to do first but what they did was form Hill Forest Historical Foundation with a board of directors and that's how it's run today. So it's been a museum for 60 years and the house is 160 years old this year. So if someone were to visit this museum what are some of the things that they would see and do you always dress like for special occasions and we're requested to wear our Victorian clothing I should say. I've been corrected about calling it a costume but it is a costume. Anyway well what goes on here? Well we have lunches and dinners and teas and Little Girls Victorian House Museum. These are all money-making things. We have to keep the house alive. So can you tell me about the architectural elements and some of the beautiful art that we see around the home? I'm looking up at the ceilings and I see the crown molding and and I see all of these beautiful elements that are up above us. Can you tell us about that? Yes well around the top of the room you will see the plaster work and this is original to the house and it was the Shattuck family of Aurora who did all this plaster work and we get asked a lot when we take people on tours well that's that's a lost art or how did how do you do that and so we're fortunate to have a master plaster who lives 14 miles from here. So on the walls we have artwork there's stripes as you can see and they're different colors they're green or gray and in the parlor across the hallway they're a little different colors so this is French artwork and it's called Trompe l'oeil which means fool the eye and somewhere in the history of this house it was painted over and covered up all the stripes all the artwork and then everything was painted white the ceilings were white the hallway walls were white as well as these parlor walls everything white until 1966 and that Board of Directors in 1966 hired a man who was living upstairs as a caretaker and asking to paint the hallway white okay he scraped the walls and the more he scraped the walls the more the artwork started to show in the hallway and so three years later Board of Directors had enough money to hire husband-and-wife artists from Cincinnati to replicate what they found and the further back you stand from this artwork it appears to be paneled or three-dimensional I just noticed that I'm looking around and I'm going my eyes are fooled I get it very very interesting Wow so what else can you share with us about the mansion about the museum yes well I'd like to share that it is a National Historic Landmark since 1992 that is a big honor from the United States Department of the Interior and there are two reasons why it's a National Historic Landmark and number one it was here during the Civil War and the other reason is because Isaiah Rogers who is the architect of the house came here and he talked to Mr. Gaff and they walked around town and we even have a copy of his passage on a steamboat he paid six dollars and fifty cents to come here he brought his wife he brought his little boy so they decided on this spot to build the house Isaiah Rogers was so taken with this area he eventually moved to Cincinnati and he built hotels and houses there and so everything that Isaiah Rogers has designed has either been demolished or changed except this house this is the most pristine example of his architecture so one other thing the museum is now open for people to come you mentioned that there have been several thousand people who have come and who have visited the museum what are your hours of operation and how much does it cost and if I wanted to come and visit what would I need to know okay you would come here and you would ring the doorbell okay we always answer and everybody gets what we call a private tour one-on-one tour and so the the house the museum house is open every day except Monday and we're open from 1 to 5 in the afternoon it's $7.50 for adults and $3.50 for students and then $6.00 and under is free okay okay all right thank you welcome thanks again so much for tuning in to another edition of history in your own backyard today we spent time in Aurora Indiana talking with Suzanne Ulrich at the Hill Force Victorian House Museum we certainly hope that you enjoyed learning all about it remember travel slowly and stop often we'll see you next time bye-bye