HUNI offers a self-guided tour of this neighborhood through PocketSights.
"Touch and tame us with the grace, placid calm of Woodruff Place!"
The brainchild of nineteenth century entrepreneur James Orton Woodruff, Woodruff Place is considered the original suburb of Indianapolis. With its broad esplanades, dramatic fountains, and distinctive statuary and urns, the neighborhood recalls Woodruff's dream of creating a European-style grand residential community in a park-like setting.
The neighborhood was platted in 1872 and quickly became home to numerous prominent families. Woodruff Place experienced a building boom between 1898 and 1910, resulting in its current potpourri of architectural styles-Victorian, Queen Anne, Eastlake, Edwardian, and Arts and Crafts, among others. Author Booth Tarkington is widely presumed to have based his The Magnificent Ambersons on the lifestyle and citizens of Woodruff Place, and poet James Whitcomb Riley immortalized its charms in his poem "June at Woodruff," quoted in part above.
As was the case for many urban neighborhoods in Indianapolis, from World War I to the mid-twentieth century was a time of difficulty. Indianapolis had grown to surround Woodruff Place, the high costs of maintaining large homes during the Depression were prohibitive, and after World War II, many returning veterans settled their families away from the city's center. Fortunately for the neighborhood, in the 1970s many active residents sowed the seeds of renewal. Woodruff Place was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and in 2001 committed itself to historic designation as outlined by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Committee. Today's residents find it not only a beautiful place to live, but an active, dynamic, and welcoming place to call home.