Lilly Playhouse

A special place to play! In the late 1920s, Eli Lilly, grandson of the founder of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company, had this wood-frame playhouse built for his daughter, Evelyn, in the side yard of his property on Indianapolis’ Sunset Lane. A child’s imagination could really be enhanced from pretend play in this small-scale 1850s Greek Revival–style building. An electrical light fixture even enabled evening or cloudy-day play!

 

Such imaginative play is fondly remembered by neighbors such as Randy Wilson, who recalls using the playhouse as a fort and “a clubhouse for a bunch of kids in the neighborhood.”

 

Wilson says, “We had meetings and all kinds of things that little kids do. And, you know, we’d have movie days. We had an old movie projector and we’d take it out there, and all the kids would come on a rainy day. And they’d all sit in there, and we’d make popcorn and show old movies or old cartoons.”

 

The Lilly Playhouse was donated to The Children’s Museum in 1994. Museum staff performed repairs to the playhouse in the parking lot, completing work in time for the opening of Carousel Wishes and Dreams in November 2000.