Around Waynedale, people often keep a few stray singles in their pocket. After all, they might want to pick up a fried tenderloin sandwich at a church fundraiser or toss some money into a collection can at a business to help a resident fight cancer.
Ah, love at first sight.
When Emily Marshall first saw a picture of 3710 Wawonaissa Trail in Fort Wayne’s Indian Village on an online real estate site last year, she was intrigued by the white-stucco Spanish Colonial Revival home with its adobe-tiled roof, two-story turret and wrought-iron gated driveway.
When she and her husband, Jordan, went to see the house in person, they both knew it was love.
“We weren’t really looking for a house right then,” Emily Marshall says. And the couple didn’t need to look at any more after seeing the property.
“When we saw it, it was so unique. It was kind of quirky, like we are,” she says. “We loved it. We just weren’t expecting to find something like this in Fort Wayne.”
Indeed, the Marshalls’ house looks as if it might have been pulled up by its stylish roots from somewhere in, say, lush Bel Air, Calif., or desert Santa Fe, N.M., and transplanted into Hoosier clay.
Even today, Fort Wayne has only a handful of Spanish colonials, and when the house was built, it was considered one of a kind, according to a newspaper account from 1929 that the home’s previous owners, Rickie and Conni Barker, presented to the Marshalls.
Custom-built for John Banning, secretary-manager of the City and Suburban Building Co., which developed Indian Village, the house was only the second in what was then a high-concept suburban subdivision.
Emily notes that the house was ready for the new upscale leisure activity of the day – motoring – with an attached two-car garage tucked neatly behind it.
Over the years, she says, the home has undergone some interior improvements – a butler’s pantry was removed to add a breakfast nook to the kitchen, and a fourth bedroom was converted to allow for a master suite.
But many of the house’s charming features remain – a barrel ceiling with beams and a Spanish-style fireplace in the living room, narrow-gauge pine floors on the first floor, textured-plaster walls and, of course, that turret, which came equipped on the first floor with a Mission-style half-moon cabinet cut to fit the space.
The house also came equipped with a reputation. For years, neighbors have called it The Castle. Slews of young trick-or-treaters annually ask whether it’s haunted and whether they can see inside the turret, Emily says.
Her young nephew enjoys sleeping overnight in a sleeping bag on the floor of the upstairs turret, which opens off the master bedroom and is now equipped with a TV.
The Marshalls say their decorating style is much less formal than that of the previous owners.
It’s epitomized by a comfy black leather sectional and wood-look, slatted blinds they’ve put in the Florida room to convert it to a TV-watching space. The couple have gone minimal on rugs to show off the floors and replaced heavier drapes downstairs with simpler panels.
Surprisingly, a cotton rug the pair already owned but had stashed in a closet harmonized nicely with the golden walls of the living room and the dark-blue front entry, Emily Marshall says.
They found a long dining room table with matching chairs at a thrift store. “We’re not too fancy,” she says.
The couple have lived in the home only since November, so they haven’t had a chance yet to do much gardening, but they are looking forward this summer to being able to sit on a street-side patio reached from French doors that open off the living room.
Emily, 30, who works in community relations for the Wells County Library in Bluffton, and her husband, a 32-year-old assistant professor of biology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, say they’ll probably do some painting. Emily says they’re not overly fond of their bright pink faux-finished dining room walls.
But they don’t plan major changes, inasmuch as the baths and kitchen already have been updated.
“We just like the feel of the house – it’s big but it’s also cozy and homey. … It’s got a good flow,” Emily says.
“We do like historic stuff, so we wanted something with a little history and a little character, and that drew us to this house,” she says.
“It’s a great neighborhood, and the house is unique. It’s definitely not cookie-cutter.”
