Peters-Margedant House Move through Evansville to UE Campus
A press conference was held at the University of Evansville today to announce details of the Peters-Margedant house’s impending move from its current location at 1506 East Indiana Street through town to the UE campus.
UE president Tom Kazee, local architect Adam Greene, UE associate professor of art history Heidi Strobel, and Friends of the Peters-Margedant House representative James Renne provided details to the public.
Barring any major delays, the move is scheduled to begin Thursday, August 25 at 9:00 a.m., and it is estimated to take around four hours. Movers will head WEST on Indiana street from the house’s current location and then turn SOUTH on Willow Road. They will then travel EAST on Division Street and then head SOUTH on Weinbach Avenue under the Lloyd Expressway overpass. Finally, the movers will turn into the UE parking lot on the WEST side of Weinbach Avenue. They will then begin the process of unloading the house so it can be secured in its final location behind the Koch Center for Engineering and Computer Science at UE.
The unique Peters-Margedant House is just 552 square feet and currently sits at 1506 East Indiana Street in Evansville. The home was built in 1934 by William Wesley “Wes†Peters, Frank Lloyd Wright’s primary assistant. An Indiana native and Benjamin Bosse High School graduate who studied at both Evansville College and MIT, Peters was accepted as Frank Lloyd Wright’s first apprentice at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin in 1932. Peters would go on to work with Wright for the remainder of his career.
The small house was designed by Peters and displays many of the principles of Usonian style, Wright’s architectural effort at creating affordable, efficiently designed homes for working families and the common man. The Peters-Margedant House showcases many specific Usonian characteristics and remains one of the style’s first examples, marrying affordability, accessibility, function, and efficiency of space – all qualities highly valued in the current Small House Movement of today.
A grant from Indiana Landmarks saved the Peters-Margedant house from demolition and additional funds from the Friends of the Peters-Margedant House group and the Vanderburgh Community Foundation have made it possible to move the house to the University of Evansville’s campus where it will serve as a learning facility for both students and t
