Historic Home & Event Venue

Fowler House Mansion Self-Guided Tour

The North (Blue) Parlor

Parlors served a very special function in those days, to receive guests, for both business and social visits. Remember...you couldn’t text to check on a friend, and there certainly wasn’t a phone to call and chat. Many men and women of status passed the day socially visiting one another and entertaining guests in their parlors. They would “call” on one another.

Most middle and upper class homes had one parlor. The Fowler House has two, which allowed Moses and Eliza to entertain larger groups or to close the large walnut pocket doors and receive their own guests separately. Since Parlors were to receive visitors they were usually the most heavily decorated rooms in the house, no expense was spared to impress.

As this was prior to the railroads, Italian immigrant artisans were brought from New York City on the Wabash and Erie canal to execute the ornate plaster work adorning the ceilings of the North and South parlors much of which was originally embellished with gold leaf.

The many fireplaces you see were the primary source of heating during this period, and were fueled with coal. There were no utilities in the house when it was built of course, and the cooking was done in a separate building out back.