INDIANAPOLIS — Need some ideas to spruce up your place now that spring is here? Some of the area's top interior designers and landscape architects are putting the finishing touches on this year's "Indianapolis Decorators' Show House," which opens next week.
The Circle City is home to the nation's longest-running show house event, and organizers say the more people who stop in, the more they can help with a longstanding, life-saving mission.
The year was 1919 when the Tudor Revival, known as the "Centennial Estate," was built on the north side of Indianapolis. Now, 100 years later, the home has a new look, purpose, and mission.
It sits on the 4100 Block of Washington Boulevard and is the latest in a long line of homes featured on the St. Margaret's Hospital Guild Decorators' Show House.
"Well it's really kind of magical almost," Susie Zabel, Decorator Chair of St. Margaret's Hospital Guild, said. "It's just a labor of love. It's just something we do to give back and be part of something that's bigger than yourself."
Nearly three dozen of the area's top designers donate their time, resources and their creativity inside and outside the house - taking the real estate history and dressing it up for people to see.
"It's just a really unique process because everybody plans their room on their own and there's not a lot of chatter between them," Zabel said. "And then, somehow, magically, by the time it's over, it all just coalesces and is just extraordinary, and we are particularly proud of the house this year."
From the kitchen to the grand entry hall, to the master bedroom to the dining room to the gardens, each space speaks to every visitor differently.
As visitors walk from room to room in Decorators' Show House, they may not realize they're actually opening doors for people who save lives every day.
In fact, for 58 years, the St. Margaret's Hospital Guild has been using the proceeds raised from each show house to fund programs for Eskenazi Health.
"Education, training, awareness, certification, student nursing externship programs, a burn, and a critical care nurse residency program," LeAnn Blue, Eskenazi Health Chief Nursing Officer, said. "And with the support, we're receiving from the Saint Margaret's Hospital Guild, we're going to expand that to all new nurses that come to Eskenazi."
Free and specialized training to take 1,400 nurses to the next levels of their careers.
"The more a nurse knows, either with additional training or certification, the better patient care outcome," Blue said. 'So it's really first and foremost for the patients."
The far-reaching magic that comes from an old home, with a new spirit, and a healthy dose of creativity.
from its beginning in 1907, the Guild has raised more than $13 million to support the work of what is now Eskenazi Health, which started as City Hospital in 1895.
Tickets are still available for the show house kick-off event, with the "Opening Night Party" on April 26.
For more information and to purchase tickets to the Decorator's Show House, click here.
