12 minute read
A new era for the Fowler House: Namesake's great-great-granddaughter takes the helm at 1852 Foundation
BY AMY LONG
PHOTOS PROVIDED
As a young girl growing up in Lafayette in the 1980s, Joyce Schilli loved to spend Saturdays with her beloved grandfather. The outings usually included lunch at Arni’s, followed by a visit to the Fowler House Museum.
At the time, the building, perched on a hill above the corner of Ninth and South streets in downtown Lafayette, housed the collections of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association. Together, the two would poke around the old house and immerse themselves in history.
But these weren’t run-of-the-mill museum tours. Their excursions were exceptional because Schilli’s grandfather, Joseph Fowler, had grown up in that home, and he led her through the rooms in a way that no TCHA docent ever could.
“He just told me different stories about growing up in the house and things of that nature, and it was always fun, because I loved spending time with him,” Schilli says. “He was a special person.”
Schilli recounts her grandfather’s tales of climbing down the attic stairs on his hands; or of selling homemade brew to Purdue students during Prohibition from a speakeasy in the basement; or of sleeping on the sun porch and making his own air conditioning unit with a bucket of ice and a fan.
In June, Schilli’s connection to the historic home came full-circle when she took over leadership of The 1852 Foundation. The nonprofit organization was founded in 2015 to oversee the restoration and preservation of the Fowler House Mansion and to run the Fowler House Kitchen, a 75-seat restaurant housed within the historic building.
“I have a time-vested interest,” Schilli says. “I’ve been going to the house for the last 50 years. Can anybody else really say that?”
Because Schilli is a direct descendant of the home’s original owner, Moses Fowler – she is his great-great-great-granddaughter — it might seem like her appointment to the board of The 1852 Foundation was her birthright – something that had been in the works for generations. But though she grew up in Indiana, Schilli has been based for years in east Texas, where she owns and operates her own trucking and transport companies. If you had asked her a year ago, she would not have said that managing a historic home in Lafayette was part of her long-term plan.
But the opportunity came up quickly, and Schilli is not one to shy away from a challenge. “A lot of it has to go to my hard-headedness to making things work, making things prosper,” Schilli says.
Passed down through generations
A prominent local businessman, banker and railroad magnate, Moses Fowler built the Gothic Revival-style home in 1852. In 1902, the house was passed down to Moses’s grandson Cecil Fowler, who lived there with his family until his children — including Joseph Fowler, Schilli’s grandfather — were grown. In 1941, Cecil Fowler sold the house to the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, which ran the building as a museum until 2005, and used it for office space and storage until 2015.
In 2015, Matt and Dr. Ann Jonkman established The 1852 Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and built up its coffers with donations of their own money. The foundation then purchased the Fowler House from the TCHA and subsidized $1.3 million in updates and repairs so that the home could remain open to the public for tours and special events. Improvements included the addition of accessible restrooms as well as a commercial kitchen with state-of-the-art appliances. Since then, the house has functioned as a restaurant serving lunch and dinner, as well as a venue for weddings, meetings, reunions and holiday parties.
But recently, The 1852 Foundation has struggled, hit hard by COVID-19 shutdowns, as well as a surprise 2022 property tax bill for nearly $25,000. Since 2015, an educational exemption had freed The 1852 Foundation from its property tax obligations. But last year, the County Tax Assessor’s office revoked the exemption, asserting that the building was being used as a restaurant, and not for educational purposes. Matt Jonkman, the foundation’s president, appealed, and the issue eventually grew into a drawn out, much-publicized dispute.
In spring of 2023, drained of energy and funds — and with the property tax bill issues still unresolved — the Jonkmans decided that they needed to scale back and announced that the restaurant would shut down.
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce our impending closure,” a Facebook post, dated March 21, 2023, reads. “We welcome all community support through the remainder of the 2023 year. Reach out to your local state representative today in support of legislative changes.”
Keeping it in the family
In addition to her transportation companies in Texas, Schilli owns a Maaco body shop in Lafayette and maintains family ties in the area. Through the years, she kept tabs on the Fowler House and honored her grandfather by visiting the historic home on her trips through town. She had been following the Fowler House on social media last spring when she saw Matt Jonkman’s announcement and immediately sent him an email.
“I told him how sorry I was that this was happening,” Schilli says. “I wished him the best of luck and if there’s anything I could do, to please let me know.”
Schilli adds, “He responded, and we started talking, and things transpired from there.”
Because the historic home is owned by The 1852 Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that can be neither bought nor sold, the transfer of leadership did not require a sale – only the appointment of a new board of directors.
“My wife and I had no intention of running the place for six years,” Jonkman says. “I just wanted to do something good. I loved that house. My wife and I got married there. It had a special place in our hearts. … The best future was going to be giving it back to the Fowler family or someone else that intends to run it over the years.”
Two months after Schilli first reached out, the Jonkmans turned over the leadership of the 1852 Foundation to Schilli on June 5, 2023 — what would have been Joseph Fowler’s 108th birthday. To round out the board, Schilli appointed her mother, Louise, as well as Marc Bumbalough, a longtime business associate who serves as the chief operating officer for Schilli’s companies
Bumbalough lives in Brookston, and is boots-on-the-ground at Maaco and, now, at the Fowler House Mansion. He says he encouraged Schilli to take over The 1852 Foundation leadership, not because it made solid business sense, but simply because it seemed like the right thing to do.
“I said, ‘I think you’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity,’” Bumbalough recalls. “I knew how much her grandfather meant to her, and this house is her grandfather. I knew she had to do this. She would regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t jump on the opportunity. Whether successful or not successful, she would have always regretted it.”
Bumbalough adds that he ordinarily would have advised Schilli to take her time with her decision. But the transfer of leadership happened quickly, in part because of Schilli’s and Bumbalough’s commitment to the home and to the people who work there – including a full-time manager and a restaurant and event staff of about 20.
“We started working towards a transition, which had to go fairly quickly to avoid a shutdown – a lot quicker than how any other acquisition would happen,” Bumbalough explains. “We didn’t want the employees to lose their positions. We didn’t want the restaurant to shut down. So, we came in and basically assumed management of The 1852 Foundation, which was the easiest way to change the leadership.”
In the interest of a seamless transition, Schilli says she plans to keep the Fowler House Mansion running much the way it did when Matt Jonkman was in charge. “At this time, nothing’s changing,” Schilli says. “We’re still going to have the kitchen running. We’re still going to be a venue for weddings, funerals, parties of any sort, any kind that you want.”
Without any big changes planned, Schilli and Bumbalough have been focused on learning the ropes of running a nonprofit organization, as well as on maintenance and preservation of the building.
Almost immediately after she assumed leadership, Schilli says, her team reached a compromise with the Tippecanoe County Tax Assessor’s office.
“Basically it came down to a square footage issue: How much of the house is dedicated to the restaurant, versus how much of it is dedicated to the house itself,” Bumbalough explains. “We were able to come to an agreement for now, and they’ll continue to work with us on that.”
Next on the to-do list, Schilli says, are needed repairs, including replacing rotten wood around some windows and fixing a leaky fountain. At the same time, the team also needs to attract patrons and diners, who will, in turn, generate revenue. And to do this, they need to increase their visibility.
“The announcement came out in March about the closing of the house, and people still think it actually happened, and that we closed,” Bumbalough says.
Compounding that problem is the sluggish post-pandemic landscape. “Before COVID, [the Fowler House Mansion] was booked solid every weekend,” Bumbalough says. In contrast, the house hosted only about six or seven weddings in all of 2023.
“We know we can get back to that,” he adds. “That’s what we’ve got to do.”
Constrained by strict rules about modern improvements on historic properties, as well as by their shoestring budget, the new leadership is trying to figure out how to grab the public’s attention.
“We can’t put a big flashy sign, like McDonald’s has, out in the front yard, and we wouldn’t want to,” Bumbalough says. “We don’t want to take away from the house.”
For now, most of their customers find them through Facebook. Yard signs posted along South and Ninth streets invite passers-by to drop into their speakeasy-themed bar for after-work drinks. Themed fund-raisers planned over the next several months — including movie nights, wine tastings and a Kentucky Derby Party –will generate attention and some additional income. And, Bumbalough says, the team will work hard to woo local businesses – including and especially Purdue University — for luncheons, meetings, retreats and other events.
While positions in nonprofit leadership and restaurant management come with specific sets of challenges, Schilli and Bumbalough have discovered that those jobs are not entirely out of their trucking and logistics purview. Including the Texas trucking company, the Lafayette Maaco, the Fowler House Kitchen and The 1852 Foundation, Bumbalough helps Schilli run seven different businesses.
“I talk to Marc probably two hours a day,” Schilli says, ticking off the different topics that they cover. “We’re either talking trucks, we’re talking kitchen, we’re talking hiring wait staff to hiring tarpers. We’ve got a broad spectrum of people we hire. But the interesting thing is, the more and more we get into this, there’s really not much difference in the type of people we’re hiring.”
Whether you’re a mechanic, a truck driver, a chef or a server in a restaurant, Schilli says, “you’ve got to be organized. You’ve got to be thinking two steps ahead about what you’re doing next. And so even though we’re hiring for different positions, we’re actually looking for the same type of person.”
In the long term, Schilli looks forward to getting to the “fun” things, like refinishing the second-level floors, renovating the bathrooms, and decorating the rooms with period furniture. In fact, Schilli and her mother own several pieces of furniture that are original to the home — and they are in touch with cousins and other relatives who also have original pieces. Schilli looks forward to rounding up as much as she can and reinstalling those pieces in the Fowler House Mansion.
All of the improvements will be in service of her long-term goal to make the Fowler House Mansion a grand Lafayette destination, the way she remembers it when she visited with her grandfather.
“When people come to the Fowler House, I want them to feel at home,” Schilli says. “Even though the first floor’s a restaurant, I don’t want them to feel like they’re walking into a restaurant. I want them to feel like they’re walking into a home. It’s the way it’s decorated. It’s the way people present themselves. It’s the whole attitude and the whole atmosphere of it. And those are things that we’re slowly changing at the house as time progresses.”
Ultimately, “I would like to see the Fowler House to be a premier stop for anyone going to Lafayette,” Schilli says. “And I would like to see us having a waitlist for people wanting to be married there, or have their graduation there.”
“The house’s mission is to educate the public and protect the significance of the architecture and historic value of the house,” Bumbalough says. “I would like to see it more full of people. And close to everybody in the community knowing that it’s here and knowing what it’s supposed to be about.” ★
The Fowler House Mansion, at 909 South St. in Lafayette is open for lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and for brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday
