Brile House

Description:	Drawing of the Brile House on East Poplar Street by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect. The Brile House on East Poplar Street. Drawn by Juliet A. Peddle, Terre Haute Artist and Architect.The Brile House stands on the southeast corner of Twenty-fifth and Poplar streets.Charles B. Brile, who built the house, was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, where he served an apprenticeship as a millwright, a trade he followed for 15 years. He came west about 1845 and settled first in Owen County and later, in the early fifties, came to Terre Haute. Here he engaged in the grocery business at first. In 1858 he bought a good-sized tract of farmland out on the Bloomington road and soon after erected a large and substantial brick house. From this time on he was interested principally in farming. I am told that for a period around the time of the Civil War the Briles opened their house to travelers along the Bloomington road, though I have never heard of its having a special name as an inn.The original house had four large rooms on each floor in addition to the stair hall and a small room at the end of the hall on the second floor. The kitchen and another room, which part of the time served as a dining room, were in a separate smaller frame building back from the house a short distance. After 1900 a wing, which included a kitchen, was added to the rear of the main house. I cannot be sure, but the house was built late enough that the porches as seen today might have been part of the original building and not added later as so often happens in old houses.The original owner did much to develop the setting of his house and the fine old trees in the yard have grown so well that it is difficult to find an angle at which the house can be seen well through the branches. The above illustration represents the house as it stands today rather than a restoration as I was able to find no early pictures.The Bloomington road was an important thoroughfare in early days, and I am sure must have had inns along it but this is the first one I have identified as such.The older generation will remember when opposite the Brile house stood the Deming farmhouse, one of the Civil War period homes, with the half basement, and stair steps leading to a front porch in the center of the house.In those days where Woodrow Wilson High School and the Deming Place now stand were lush cornfields and other signs of bucolic life.Farther east where Deming Park now is was the Sand Hill dairy farm operated by the Klattes, with lowing herds browsing oer the lea, the lea being what are now the landscaped hills of our largest city park.
Origin:	01/01/2005
Contributor(s):	Peddle, Juliet, 1899-1979
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/rose/id/845
Collection:	Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Logan Library
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/
Copyright:	Copyright Undetermined
Subjects:	Architectural drawings Architecture Houses Trees Taverns (Inns) Brile family Brile, Charles B., ca. 1820- Architecture

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