Hot Property: Architect-designed home has mid-century feel

Architect Fran E. Schroeder designed churches, lodges and other buildings throughout Indiana. When it came to design his own house, he chose a perch high on a hill in the Northeastside of Indianapolis, overlooking Mud Creek in a mostly undeveloped area of the city.

“He was really kind of a frontiersman so to speak,” said his son Donald Wayne Torres Schroeder.

From the beginning, the senior Schroeder considered his house an “open situation.” He designed the first section in the late Forties and then built on in later years. Schroeder had plenty of room with which to play; the property spans ten acres, most of which is wooded.

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The home itself retains a mid-century modern feel combined with a certain Asian flair.

“The simplicity of the Asian influence appealed to him,” the younger Schroeder said.

Screen doors set off one of the rooms that could serve a bedroom or den. A toilet in the first floor is hidden behind a wooden cabinet, as the senior Schroeder did not want a toilet protruding into the room and saw this as a space saving measure, his son said.

The kitchen is original to the home with a vintage Hotpoint oven and built-in breakfast nook. Schroeder designed the relatively small space so the person cooking could stand in the center of the room and easily reach the cabinets and surface spaces, his son said.

Schroeder also wanted to draw on a connection to the nature just outside. He constructed a stairwell and the fireplace in the living room from walnut trees collected on the property and had a plaque made to reflect its provenance.

“The solid walnut in this house ‘grew on this land’,” reads the plaque, which remains today.

Eventually, Schroeder, who lived in the house until his death in 1988, added a master suite on a second floor and another bedroom below that overlooks the woods to the rear of the home.

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The younger Schroeder recognizes that the house speaks to a different age.

“It’s not brought to the moment with the amenities that a lot of people look for in terms of present dwellings with great rooms,” he said. “It has a nice flow to it, though I think and it has a sensible scale, a cozy scale.”

The property also has a lot of possibility for expansion or even building a second home. At one point, the senior Schroeder, who called his home “Tenfields,” contemplated putting another residence just to the north of his house.

But his wife nixed the idea, afraid that additional buyers might not appreciate a second dwelling.

“My dad was very creative, but maybe not as practical,” Schroeder said.

Instead at one point, the senior Schroeder had his architectural office on the property just to the north of the house. Eventually his son took the structure down as it was sitting vacant.

After Schroeder’s widow died in 2004, the younger Schroeder held on to it for several years, although he already had residences on the East and West Coasts.

Now, he’s hoping to sell it to someone who appreciates not just the bricks and mortar but the history with which the home comes.

About the home

• Location: 8000 Sargent Road, Indianapolis.

• Details: Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, 2,796 square feet, 10 acres, a screened-in porch, barn storage.

• List price: $950,000.

• MLS: 21377488.

• Contact: Jim Stone, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Indiana Reality, Office: (317) 595-2100; Cell: (317) 558-5784, Email: jstone@bhhsin.com.

Call IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: srudavsky.