A 109-year-old Evansville mansion with historical significance is set to go on the market

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Take a drive down the 1100 block of Lincoln Avenue, and it's impossible to miss the two-and-a-half-story, limestone-sheathed mansion with four massive, Corinthian-style columns rising from its entrance.

The Historic Boehne House was named for original owner John W. Boehne, a U.S. Congressman and Evansville's mayor from 1906 to 1909. Its current residents, Bob and Nikki Davis and their family, are putting the house back on the market this summer after calling it home — and working tirelessly to restore the property to its former glory — over the past eight years.

Nikki Davis considers herself just one of many "stewards" of the home at 1119 Lincoln Ave., and she said she'd dreamed of living there for a while before the family purchased it in 2014 from Gilda's Club for $300,000.

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"It was a little more than what I wanted to pay," Davis said. "But my husband and I looked at each other and asked, 'When would we ever have the opportunity to buy and experience something like this?'"

The home, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, has worn different hats for its many different occupants and owners since it was built in 1913 by the Evansville-based architectural firm Shopbell, Clifford & Co., which also constructed several other historic buildings around town, including the Old City Market on Pennsylvania Street and the Indiana Bank on Main.

After changing hands from the Boehne family to the American Legion in 1947, the house became a private residence again when the Moll family bought it in 1952. In 1965, the University of Evansville chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity bought the home for $65,000 and housed its members on the third-floor attic in a dormitory setting.

TKE's members lived in the house for more than 20 years before the law firm Buthod, Clark, Rietman, Steedman & Link bought the property and began retrofitting it into a law office. Two of the partners, Clark and Steedman, were former "Tekes" who lived in the house's dorm in the late 1960s, according to a 1986 article in the Evansville Courier.

During that restoration, a fire broke out that damaged or destroyed much of the woodwork, main staircase, French doors and "pocket" doors inside the home.

In 1991, Rose Marie's Gifts moved in, turning the then-80-year-old building into a gift shop. The nonprofit cancer-support organization Gilda’s Club took over the residence from Rose Marie’s, but never moved in.

Then the Davises arrived in 2014. Before the family could truly call the mansion home, though, there was significant work to do: At the time of sale, Nikki said it had "no electric, no plumbing, no HVAC, and we ended up putting in over 200 sheets of drywall."

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From the outside, Nikki said the home doesn't look much different than it always has: a Colonial-Revival style abode with a white exterior with the towering, Romanesque columns acting as the home's centerpiece and eye-catcher. It was its interior trappings, which now include five bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, that needed work after years spent as a gift shop.

She described the renovation process as a "top-to-bottom" ordeal. The family installed a new roof, kitchen, working bathrooms and a walk-in closet in the back of house's second floor.

The Davises have pieced together modern-day amenities with the original furnishings: An in-ground pool was installed in the backyard in 2016, and the back shed has a batting cage setup inside, but much of the home's surviving woodwork has been brought back to life. The bruises, marks and burns that make old houses so unique are still rooted into the Boehne House.

An example: A tiger-striped burn pattern, left over from the 1980s fire, marks one section of the first floor, in a spot adjacent to the dining room. Davis said they knew when they restored the hardwoods in the house that those markings would not come out and were OK with it.

"It was just one of the many stories that the house had to tell," Davis said.

She said the family loved reveling in all the stories that made the home so special throughout its history. The house has hosted reunion events for TKE alums, who Davis said would share tales of adventuring in and around the property.

That included the time a group of members tried to smuggle a massive pig from a car into the house for a prank, Davis said, but were stopped by an Evansville policeman.

"They told him not to open the trunk," Davis said. "He did, saw what was in there, closed it and walked away."

The house hosted to weddings, baby showers, networking events and even Easter egg hunts for kids throughout the eight years the Davises have owned it. Davis said she wanted people to have the opportunity to experience the house for themselves.

"To see the looks on kids' faces when they rolled up here for the first time was always so fun," Nikki said. "It always made me chuckle when my friends' and clients' kids would call it 'Ms. Nikki's mansion.'"

Speaking of kids, Nikki and her husband, Bob, have two, along with multiple dogs and a bunny. She said the home's ample space allowed everyone to spread out and do "their own thing," which was especially helpful during the kids' teenage years.

Entrants to the Boehne House are greeted by a winding, grand staircase set in the center of the house that connects its first and second floors. The first floor also includes a formal living room, family room and dining room, along with a new kitchen and pantry,  a half-bathroom and laundry room.

The second floor has four bedrooms, one in each corner of the house. The renovated-third floor now also has a bedroom suite, another item completed in Nikki's restoration checklist.

The property is also fairly large — three acres with a fenced-in yard and more than 20 parking spaces. Despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, Davis said there aren't any specific requirements for prospective buyers.

The Historic Boehne House will be listed at $625,000, starting Sunday.

As to why the Davises are moving on from the historic site, Nikki said the family is "diving into their next dream" and have purchased 20 acres of farmland with the hopes of creating a hobby farm that could encourage agritourism.

"I cannot wait to meet the new buyers of (the Boehne House)," Davis said. "(It's time) to pass the torch of my dream to the next person."

Contact Ray Couture at rcouture@courierpress.com or on Twitter @raybc94

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Ex-Evansville mayor's Historic Boehne House up for sale soon