Law firm adds Old Northside mansion to its campus

The law firm Plews Shadley Racher & Braun LLP has spent more than $1 million to add the 1871 Eden-Talbott house to its campus in the Old Northside Historic District. The three-story, 8,000-square-foot home is the most impressive of Plews Shadley’s four properties, IBJ’s Scott Olson wrote in a recent story for the print edition. A prominent Indianapolis builder in the late 19th century, Charlton Eden, is responsible for the home’s elegant façade and ornate interior work. He added the front portion, built in Italianate and Second Empire styles, in 1878. The house features a central tower with a carved stone balcony on the second floor. Elaborate limestone moldings flank the tower and its large windows. Black walnut, now scarce in Indiana, was used extensively in the ornate arches and carved lions’ heads found throughout the home. The 800-piece staircase newel post was displayed in 1876 at the first official World’s Fair in the United States. In 1891, the home was purchased by Henry Morrison Talbott, who controlled the top opera houses and theaters in the city. After Talbott’s death in 1929, the property changed hands several times. In 1979, the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana and the Junior League of Indianapolis purchased the home in an effort to spur revitalization of the Old Northside. A few years later, the National Federation of Music Clubs bought the house. That organization sold it to Plews Shadley for $500,000. The firm spent roughly the same amount on renovations.