The Hillforest Mansion, also known as the Thomas Gaff House, is located at 213 Fifth Street, in Aurora,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. Built in 1855 on a bluff above the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, it is one of the finest surviving examples of an

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

estate house, and a rare well-preserved example of the work of architect Isaiah Rogers. The mansion, which was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1992, and is owned and operated by Hillforest Historical Foundation. It is located in the Downtown Aurora Historic District.

Description and history

Hillforest was designed by Isaiah Rogers and built in 1855 for Thomas Gaff (1808–1884), a Scottish born businessman who moved to Aurora in the 1840s. Gaff and his siblings had a large number of business interests, including alcohol production (distilleries and breweries), railroads, and steamships. The design of Hillforest is evocative of the steamships that plied the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the 19th century. The Hillforest estate is in size, and includes, in addition to the house, formally landscaped gardens, a carriage house (a non-historic 1970s reconstruction), and land historically used for farming. The house is a 2-story frame structure covered by a low-pitch hip roof. Its main facade is finished in vertical wide board siding, while the other facades are finished in shiplap siding, with wooden quoin blocks at the corners. A semicircular section projects at the center of the main facade, rising to a belvedere on the roof. A single-story porch extends across the full width of the facade, with a second-story porch around the central projection. Windows are of full length, removing the need for doors to access the porches. The interior is sumptuously finished, with original '' Trompe-l'œil'' artwork on the walls. The property remained in the Gaff family until 1926, when it was purchased by William Stark, a furniture manufacturer. The house served as a

VFW The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), formally the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, is an organization of US war veterans, who, as United States Armed Forces, military service members fought in wars, Military campaign, campaigns, ...

lodge for a time, and was turned into a museum in 1956.

References

External links

*
Cincinnati tourism site's page
* {{National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Houses completed in 1855 National Register of Historic Places in Dearborn County, Indiana Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Historic American Buildings Survey in Indiana Italianate architecture in Indiana Historic house museums in Indiana National Historic Landmarks in Indiana Museums in Dearborn County, Indiana Houses in Dearborn County, Indiana 1855 establishments in Indiana Historic district contributing properties in Indiana

Description and history

See also

References

External links