Vacant South Bend mansion built in 1898 used to display art

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - For years, the mansion at 511 W. Colfax Ave. has stood vacant and silent.

But these days, lights are on inside and the doors are open. Local residents are coming and going from the Birdsell mansion, the grand Queen Anne-style house that industrialist Joseph Benjamin "Ben" Birdsell and his wife, Olive, had built in 1898.

The old house is the inaugural site for the Birdsell Project, a local effort that seeks to revitalize vacant spaces by opening them to artists and the community. The project is the brainchild of Nalani Stolz and Myles Robertson, local residents who are interested in art and old buildings. They got permission to use the mansion from owner Steve Mihaljevic.

"Our main goal is getting people in here to see the art," Robertson told the South Bend Tribune (http://bit.ly/14DMLeu).

Ben Birdsell was one of four sons of John Comly Birdsell, who in 1855 invented an excellent clover huller: a machine that combined the operations of threshing clover and extracting the seed from the hulls, according to "Birdsell: The Invention, The Family, The Company," a history published in 1994 by South Bend resident Roger Birdsell, a distant relation.

J.C. Birdsell started making the machines and in the early 1860s moved to South Bend and opened a factory.

The farm equipment, wagon and carriage factory Birdsell built at the corner of Columbia Street and present-day Western Avenue (near where the post office stands today) became one of the city's largest employers. After the elder Birdsell died in 1894, his sons carried on the business. Ben Birdsell was company president when his mansion was built.

The 8,112-square-foot mansion includes a mosaic-tile front porch, hardwood floors, numerous fireplaces, stained-glass windows, a ballroom and a porte-cochere. The house is built primarily of Indiana fieldstone and brick, and has a gabled section of stuccoed half-timber.

Ben Birdsell didn't have long to enjoy his new home. He died in 1906 at age 62.

The Birdsell firm continued until the farm equipment industry went into decline during the 1920s. By the early 1930s, the company closed and the factory was destroyed in a spectacular fire on Sept. 15, 1938.

Olive Birdsell lived in the mansion until at least 1926, according to city directories. She died in 1942. By 1930, the house was converted to offices and renamed the Income Building.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the mansion housed the law offices of attorney F. Jay Nimtz, a former U.S. congressman. He died in 1990. The mansion later housed other offices and briefly served again as a residence, but it's been mostly unused for more than a dozen years.

Time and weather have taken their toll on the 117-year-old building.

The grand staircase was removed at some point. A narrow staircase, originally built for use by servants, remains.

Much of the original woodwork is still there, but most of the walls and ceilings are stripped to white plaster. Some of the art on display is adhered directly to the walls.

Those who attend the art showings should dress warmly, because the old house is warmed only by space heaters.

Tribune efforts to interview Mihaljevic, the mansion's owner, about his future plans for the building were unsuccessful.

The current Birdsell Project exhibit continues until Feb. 13. For a list of dates and times the house is open to the public, visit www.facebook.com/thebirdsellproject or thebirdsellproject.wordpress.com.

The organizers hope to host additional art shows in the future, either in the mansion or in other vacant spaces around town.

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Information from: South Bend Tribune, http://www.southbendtribune.com