One of the most beautiful homes along the Ohio River is the JFD Lanier Mansion in Madison, Indiana! Built by one of the wealthiest men to live in Indiana, it was a fantastic showplace for its time, including a central, three-story staircase with a skylight. It was built to impress!
This film goes inside the mansion for an in-depth look at the rooms where deals were made, agreements were sealed, people lived in luxury, and one man single-handedly saved Indiana from bankruptcy! Oh, and it might be a little haunted.
If you drive along the Waterfront of Madison, Indiana, you can’t help but admire the enormous house facing the water. It’s the beautiful and inspiring JFD Lanier Mansion. And if you’re like me, you ask yourself two things: number one, how did someone afford something that big, and number two, what does it look like inside? Because, after all, you and I are very nosy. Lucky for us, they give daily tours at 10, 12, 2, and 4. These start at The Visitor Center directly across from the Mansion on Vine Street.
Let’s start with the rich guy James Franklin Dodie Lanier, born in 1800. No wonder he went by JFD. He started practicing law at Madison in 1820. He took chances, became Clerk of the Indiana General Assembly, and later became president of the State Bank of Indiana. He flipped his money into the growing railroad business, meat packing, and real estate and made even more money. You’ve heard that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; he was the first guy. With all this money, he hired architect Francis Costigan to create this fantastic Greek Revival Showplace, completed in 1844. And you know what? He enjoyed it for an entire seven years. The reason for this short stay? He started a bank in New York and left Indiana in 1851 to manage it, never living here again.
Now, let’s take a look inside. The first thing you’ll notice is a long hallway. It’s not very elaborate, but it is very, very pink. Pepto-Bismol pink. All painted surfaces are very high gloss. A table in the foyer only hints at how fancy this will get. In every room, be sure to look up. This place was built to impress people, and they didn’t miss many ways to do it. And speaking of impressive, this spiral staircase goes out three stories tall.
This is a big deal when it comes to architecture or if you have a crippling fear of heights. If you were a guest of Mr. Lanier, your first stop would be here. It’s richly decorated in every way, as you’d expect from one of the wealthiest men in Indiana. Speaking of the rich guy, JFD is a younger man. He was so rich that when Indiana was about to go bankrupt and couldn’t even afford to equip its soldiers for the Civil War, he loaned the state 1 million dollars of his own money. Are you sitting down for this? In 2022, that’s the equivalent of nearly 19 million dollars. He had a lot of faith in Indiana, and they did pay him back. I’m sure he was pretty glad about that. And because he single-handedly saved Indiana’s financial future, the Mansion became the first remote Museum of the Indiana State Museum in his honor. Ordinary nosy people like you and I could see how rich people lived in the 1800s.
You would be escorted to a fancy and elegant dining room across the hall if you were a dinner guest. It was admittedly hectic looking. It was a step up from the fast food we have today and was served from beautiful pieces of porcelain, crystal, and real silver. This was a pretty classy event; there was no plastic fork. A hallway from the dining room leads to a less formal but still elegant space. It’s still no slouch, unlike the entertain-the-queen-style fancy we saw in the Parlor.
This leads to a place beside the kitchen for a meal without all the Pomp and Circumstance. And being close to the kitchen is never a bad idea if you’re like me.
And then we have the kitchen itself. It had big windows, and for good reason. Before the days of air conditioning, cooking with a fireplace in the summer was extremely hot. Enormous windows were a necessity. A small, almost hidden set of stairs leads to the area above the kitchen. This is where hot water would be taken up from the kitchen, and you could take a bath in privacy. You could be negative there, and street-level people would never know it. It was almost like you were getting away with something. There were living quarters for the help.
Contrary to popular belief, there were no enslaved people here; slavery was never legal in Indiana. Everyone who worked here was a paid worker. Granted, it wasn’t a fancy or ample space, but as a bonus, if you were in town and someone asked where you lived, you could say the vast yellow Mansion by the river.
We wrap up the first floor and move on to the elegant second. These high-ceiling rooms give us a glimpse of how rich people lived in the mid-1800s. High ceilings were a practical invention, as hot air would rise and relax their rooms. And what rich person isn’t full of hot air? The downside: the rooms were cold and drafty in the winter. Each room required a fireplace and probably lots and lots of blankets. Looking south, there’s a fantastic view of the river. I could get used to that. Truthfully, while I wouldn’t choose the same wallpaper and floral prints, I think I could manage living here.
Some people ask if this place is haunted, and the safe money is more than likely, or simply duh. Mr. Lanier’s wife, Elizabeth, tragically died in 1846, having only lived here two years. Some say she never left.
One story involves two ladies. They were visiting the Mansion in the days before all tours were guided. They went to the top and came down the stairs laughing, enjoying their visit. The tour guide on the first floor asked if they had any questions. Both ladies replied that the tour guide on the second floor was amiable, answered all their questions, and that her 1800-style dress was gorgeous. The other problem was that no tour guide was on the second floor, and none of the Mansion employees wore 1800-style dresses. The tour guide went upstairs but found no one. Some say the ghost stories are legit, and others say the ghost stories are a bunch of “Hey, look a toilet.”
The Mansion was one of the first places with an indoor commode, but it was set up differently than today. Water was set in a reservoir high above the toilet; pulling the cord allowed the water to come down and flush. The more significant issue was that there was no sewer, and eventually, someone would have to clean out a very nasty place below the toilet. I will never complain about my job again.
We could end our tour here, but we would be missing something. The third floor was exclusively for those who ran the house and did the chores. Compared to the first two floors, it feels small and slightly spooky. It’s not the wrong place; it has windows for light and ventilation and a stove to keep warm. One woman who worked here also had a little boy who lived here and helped with small chores. Mr. Lanier generously paid for his education and school clothes. From here, the only way to go is down. Just hold the handrail, stroll, and forget that if
