Christmas is aglow at the Inn at Irwin Gardens, where the innkeeper is eager for people to experience the famous Columbus home.
“My staff has worked very hard to decorate throughout the inn. I think they have captured the mood and tone of the house,” Brittany Snowden said Sunday as she prepared to lead a Winter House Tour at the home, 608 Fifth St.
Throughout December, tours of the home — where industrialist and philanthropist J. Irwin Miller lived as a boy — are scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
“This home holds the history of the family that helped build the town of Columbus. And it holds the history of the men whose work changed the town, the state and even the world,” Snowden said of the house, a local landmark and now a bed-and-breakfast inn.
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Home’s history
The three-story 13,000-square-foot Edwardian era home was built by Joseph Ireland Irwin in 1864. Daughter Linnie married Zachery T. Sweeney and their children were raised in the home.
In 1908, the family hired a teenage mechanic, Clessie Cummins, to work in their garage and serve as a chauffeur. He would eventually form Cummins Engine Co.
Multiple generations of the Irwin and Sweeney families shared the massive home. The Sweeneys’ daughter, Nettie, married Hugh Thomas Miller and the couple also lived in the home where they raised their two children, daughter Elizabeth Clementine and son Joseph Irwin.
In 1909, the Irwin Gardens were created along the side the home. Expansion and improvements to both the house and gardens were completed in 1910 and few changes have been made since.
Joseph, who became known as J. Irwin Miller, was educated at Yale and Oxford, and eventually became chairman of Cummins Engine Co. He also became president of the National Council of Churches.
In the 1950s, J. Irwin Miller and his wife Xenia left the long-time family home to build a Modern-style home on Washington Street, where they raised their five children.
Eventually, the Irwin family heirs also left the home on Fifth street.
In 2009, Chris and Jessica Stevens purchased the home and have operated it as a privately owned, historically preserved bed-and-breakfast since.
‘This is amazing’
“We want people who come here to feel there is life in this home,” Snowden said to Shelly Bishop during Sunday’s tour.
An employee of the Bartholomew County Public Library, Bishop was enthralled with the old books in the custom-made bookshelves in the library. Snowden encouraged Bishop to hold a book in her hands.
“When the family left, they left their original collection of books behind. Sometimes, we hide family letters and notes in the books to let people have the fun of finding them for themselves. We want visitors to share the real experience of the house,” Snowden said.
The tour includes visits to the downstairs rooms.
Bishop explored the formal dining room with the holiday decorations and the china table settings. She stopped to see the carefully arranged holiday table displays throughout the parlor rooms. Bishop looked amazed and had many questions about the etched windows along the beautiful woodworked stairway.
“This is so fun,” said Bishop as she headed toward the upstairs bedrooms. “I have always wondered what this place must be like on the inside, but I have never been inside. This is amazing.”
Guests were staying in some of the bedrooms, so only two bedrooms were open for the tour.
Special place
With the help of five part-time employees and a group of volunteers, Snowden conducts at least two routine tours a week as well as special group tours.
About 50 people stay overnight in the bedrooms every month. There are around 12 weddings held in the house and gardens each year as well as conferences and meetings. During summer months, the gardens are open to the public during scheduled hours, and the gardens are often rented for special events, the innkeeper said.
Snowden, who lives in the upstairs staff living quarters with her husband, Gariathon, and their 16-month-old daughter, Willamay, has become a piece of the home’s, history, too.
She was looking for a place to have her wedding in 2011.
“They were having a tea or something in the gardens and I just walked in. I immediately fell in love with all of it. Two years later, we were married here and a year after that I saw an ad for an event coordinator. I answered the ad and I became the innkeeper in 2016 and here we are. And this is exactly where I want to be,” Snowden said.
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The Inn at Irwin Gardens Winter Tour can be booked through the Columbus Area Visitors Center.
Tour times are 1 p.m. Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, at the inn, located at 608 Fifth St. in downtown Columbus. Tour lasts one hour. Check in at 12:45 p.m.
Cost is $15.
Information: Columbus Area Visitors Center at columbus.in.us or 378-2622; or the Inn at Irwin Gardens at 812-376-3663.
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