The mix of original midcentury details and a price tag well below the country’s median is thrusting a modest central Indiana home into social media virality. For the second time.
“I think the rest of the country can’t fathom a house being that inexpensive and looking like that,” said listing agent Whitney Strange in an interview with Homes.com.
Built in 1958, the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Anderson asks just $225,000 for 1,663 square feet and original parquet floors, a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams and a retro color palette accented throughout. It also features wooden built-ins and a double-sided brick fireplace.
While the median home price nationally reached $385,000 in November, according to Homes.com data, this ranch property comes in well under. The time capsule of a home listed originally in 2023, racking up nearly 70 showings and calls from across the country wanting to just take a peek inside, said Strange. Anderson is about 40 miles northeast of Indianapolis and is considered a suburb of the state capital.
“It just became very overwhelming,” added the agent, who anticipates the same attention in the home’s second round of listing.
The property found a bidder, but due to work required on the crawlspace and roof, that deal fell through. To mitigate showings from curious midcentury lovers, the seller and agent are selling the property as-is, cash only, discounting the home from its $260,000 last asking price to account for needed work.
Instagram user @leavesomecharacter, an account dedicated to historic and atypical properties, already picked up on the listing. A post has garnered more than 4,000 likes since Thursday.
The original homeowner built it for their family
When the seller purchased the property in 2021 for $200,000, it came with a letter written years prior by a former homeowner. That letter outlined family memories within the home and detailed its history.
According to the letter, the home was built and designed by an architect by the name of Hutchinson. Public records show the home was owned by Elmer Lyle Hutchinson, an architectural drafter.
“He was influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright,” said Strange, citing the letter.
It went on to detail Hutchinson’s construction of the property, which he did largely by himself. The family lived in a trailer on the lawn as he built the property. To mitigate taxes at the time, Hutchinson opted for plentiful built-in storage rather than furniture, such as a wall of shelves and a desk, bar and side table in the kitchen. That’s why each bedroom and other parts of the home feature pegboard walls.
“He designed the house around the existing trees. There was a large tree where the green den is now, and when it died, the room was closed in,” according to the letter. “You can see the wall between the den and the living room was once an exterior wall.”
Back in the late ’50s, the home sat on open land, so the family carved out walking trails of their own behind the property. The house sits down a long driveway on a 0.59-acre lot.
The current seller purchased the property after it was renovated in 2021. Comparing listing photos, the renovator painted the original brick fireplace, replaced light fixtures, painted the kitchen cabinets and retiled the floor. For bathrooms, new vanities, tile and wallpaper were added.
Calls have come in from investors and potential owner-occupants, said Strange. The seller would list the property during travel for short-term rentals, and those “were very well rented out,” said the agent.