The Stutz Home was completed in early 1923 for automotive engineer and industrialist Harry C. Stutz. Now at 3190 N. Meridian Street, its address was originally 3172. The eclectic Craftsman style house, which incorporates both Prairie and classical details, is of masonry construction with buff brick and a green clay tile roof. These materials echo the architecture of the Stutz Factory complex at West 10th Street and Capitol Avenue.
Harry Stutz (1876–1930) moved to Indianapolis in 1903 and started the Stutz Motor Car Company with his business partner Henry Campbell in 1911. Stutz served as president of that interest until 1919, shortly after which he joined Campbell in establishing a new venture, the HCS Motor Car Company. It was during his period as president of this second company that Stutz, along with his first wife Clara, built the home on Meridian Street, but his occupancy of the property was brief. Stutz sold the house in 1925, divorced Clara, married his second wife, Blanche, and then retired to Florida. He returned to Indianapolis for health care just prior to his death, and is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery.
The second owner was attorney Arthur V. Brown, then president of the Union Trust Company, and his wife Katherine (Malott) Brown. The home remained in his possession, and later his widow’s, until the mid-to-late 1950s. Brown was also a president of Indiana National Bank, a director of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company. He was remembered upon his death in 1946 as a civic leader in Indianapolis. An office of Indiana Mutual Insurance in the 1960s and the Home Care Agency of Greater Indianapolis in the 1970s subsequently occupied the property. During the 1980s, the property housed an annex to Winona Hospital. The current owner is Sidney Enterprises LLC, a real estate arm of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
– Mark Dollase, Indiana Landmarks
