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Last updated on Monday, April 30, 2018
(INDIANAPOLIS) - Indiana Landmarks today announced the 10 Most Endangered, an annual list of Hoosier landmarks in jeopardy. The list includes a college campus, an eccentric estate, an unusual barn, a basketball palace, and more.
"We put places on the endangered list to raise awareness and find ways to save them," says Marsh Davis, president of the nonprofit preservation organization. "Indiana Landmarks has been able to solve problems, forge partnerships, and create revitalization strategies that wrest these sites from the brink of extinction," he adds.
On the list is the North Christian Church at 850 Tipton Lane in Columbus.
Even internationally known landmarks designed by famous architects can get in trouble. North Christian Church, one of seven National Historic Landmarks in the Modernist mecca of Columbus, suffers a fate similar to many historic houses of worship--a dwindling congregation that can't support the repair and maintenance of a facility that far exceeds its space needs.
Modernist architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) viewed most post-World War II churches as ordinary structures that lacked the grandeur and prominence achieved by the cathedrals of earlier times. He aimed higher, seeking to inspire worshippers inside as well as viewers from afar with his revolutionary design, with a hexagonal sanctuary on a raised berm topped by a sky-piercing 192-foot spire.
Saarinen died a few years before the construction was completed in 1964. Dan Kiley (1912-2004), nearly as internationally famous in landscape design as Saarinen is in architecture, lent his Modernist touch to the 13.5-acre grounds, placing four parking courts amid meadows and woods, with magnolias, dogwoods and flowering plants.
National Historic Landmark status is an honor, but it brings no money to help support the site. The place needs repair that the congregation can't begin to afford and faces a steep decline. A participant in Indiana Landmarks' Sacred Places program, the church hopes space sharing may be a saving solution.
Demolition has claimed only 16 of the 131 Most Endangered sites listed since 1991, while 84 places are completely restored or no longer endangered.
The 10 Most Endangered in 2018 includes one site repeating from last year's list and nine new entries:
Places that land on the 10 Most Endangered list often face a combination of problems rather than a single threat--abandonment, neglect, dilapidation, obsolete use, unreasonable above-market asking price, owners who simply lack money for repairs, remote location.
"Indiana Landmarks confers 10 Most Endangered status on important historic places that have reached a dire point, like the Newkirk Mansion in Connersville on the 2017 list. The vacant hilltop mansion suffered a leaking roof, vandalism and an arson fire in the carriage house. We developed a strategy that included price negotiation, optioning the property, and a national search for a new owner willing to restore the house. We found an ideal buyer in the Sparks family who immediately began addressing the structural needs and embraced the protective covenant we attached to the deed," says Davis.
To find out more about each of the 10 Most Endangered, and check out some 10 Most success stories, visit www.indianalandmarks.org or contact Indiana Landmarks, 317-639-4534 or 800-450-4534.
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