Ruthmere Mansion

Elkhart rose along the St. Joseph River in a region that is the homeland of the Potawatomi, including the Pokagon Band, and the Miami (Myaamia), who lived in the St. Joseph valley long before the town was platted in the 1830s. The river that drew the Beardsleys' mansion was a route these peoples had used for generations.

Albert Rutherford Beardsley made his fortune with Miles Laboratories, the Elkhart company behind household remedies that would later include Alka-Seltzer. His uncle, Dr. Franklin Miles, had founded the firm on nerve tonics and patent medicines, and the Beardsley family's wealth was built on the booming turn-of-the-century medicine trade. When A.R. and Elizabeth Beardsley decided to build a grand home, they could afford the best architects and craftsmen of their day.

The Beardsleys hired the Freyermuth firm and designer Enoch Hill Turnock, an Elkhart architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, to create a house that would announce their standing. Completed around 1910, Ruthmere blended classical symmetry with the era's love of rich materials, and it was equipped with the modern comforts a wealthy household expected in the new century.

The house took its name from Ruth Beardsley, a daughter who had died as an infant, a private grief woven into a very public home. For years it was a center of Elkhart social life, and its gardens and river setting made it one of the showplaces of the city.

By the middle of the twentieth century the mansion had passed out of the family and fallen into disrepair. Robert Beardsley, a grandnephew, bought the house and devoted years and a considerable fortune to restoring it, tracking down original details and craftspeople who could recreate what had been lost.

The result is a house museum returned to its Gilded Age glory, complete with silk-covered walls, hand-painted ceilings and friezes, inlaid parquet floors, and period furnishings. Ruthmere opened to the public as a museum in the 1970s and today anchors a small campus of preserved Elkhart architecture.

Ruthmere is usually experienced on a guided tour that walks visitors through the principal rooms and tells the story of the family, the company, and the restoration. The formal gardens and grounds along the St. Joseph River are part of the experience, with fountains and plantings in keeping with the house's era.

Elkhart makes an easy base for exploring northern Indiana, from the nearby Amish communities of Shipshewana and Middlebury to South Bend and the University of Notre Dame just to the west. Spring and summer bring the gardens to life, while the interiors reward a visit in any season.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.