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Miller House (Columbus, Indiana)

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1257382

Miller House (Columbus, Indiana)

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Miller House (Columbus, Indiana)

The Miller House and Garden is a historic house museum at 2760 Highland Way in Columbus, Indiana, United States. It was designed by Eero Saarinen as a mid-century modern residence for the family of the businessman J. Irwin Miller and his wife Xenia Simons Miller. The interior designer Alexander Girard, the landscape architect Dan Kiley, and Saarinen's associate Kevin Roche assisted with various parts of the design. The house and gardens, owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) since 2009, are designated as a National Historic Landmark. Both the house and the gardens have been praised for their design over the years.

The 13.5-acre (5.5 ha) plot of land, bounded by the Flatrock River on the west and Washington Street on the east, includes a meadow, two allées, and groves of trees. Kiley designed the landscape as an extension of the home, loosely divided into three sections extending from the house. The Miller House itself is a single-story house on a terrace, covered by a flat roof. It covers 6,838 square feet (635.3 m2) with six bedrooms. Inside, four zones branch off from a central living room that features a conversation pit. These four zones include rooms for parents, children, guests and servants, and service areas. Girard designed furnishings and furniture for the house, and the Millers displayed their art collection there.

After Miller acquired the site in September 1953, he commissioned Saarinen for the project, commencing a two-year design process. The Taylor Brothers Construction Company began constructing the house in 1955, and the Millers began moving into the house in March 1957. Over the years, the Millers hosted many meetings and social gatherings at the house. The Millers made several changes to the original design, including removing an interior wall to enlarge a room. Though the Miller children gradually moved out of the house, their parents continued to live there for the rest of their lives; Irwin Miller died in the house in 2004, followed by Xenia Miller in 2008. After the IMA acquired the house, the property was renovated, opening to the public in May 2011.

The Miller House and Garden are located at 2760 Highland Way in Columbus, Indiana, United States. The plot of land, bounded by the Flatrock River on the west and Washington Street on the east, is rectangular and measures 13.5 acres (5.5 ha). A meadow slopes down to the west, toward the river, which is about 800 feet (240 m) away. The house itself is situated on a hillside, where the land abruptly descends about 30 feet (9.1 m). For privacy, the house was approached from a side street (Highland Way) rather than directly from the busier Washington Street, and the front door was positioned away from the street. A service passageway leads to Washington Street, which is one full block away.

The garden around the house was designed by the landscape architect Dan Kiley, who had worked with the house's architect Eero Saarinen on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. Kiley's design was a modernist adaptation of formal European gardens, which are generally symmetrical and geometric, and was inspired by the patches of farmland he saw on his flights to Columbus. The design continues the architectural elements of the house and was intended to provide privacy, color, and distinctive decorations to the property without intruding on the landscape or blocking off neighbors. Kiley used architectural terms to describe his design, for instance likening his allées to balustrades. Although the house was intended as a private residence, Kiley had intended the grounds as "an element of the greater assemblage of Columbus' modern architecture" from the outset. Gregg Bleam, who worked on the project with Kiley, described the design as "garden, meadow, and wood".

The main entrance allée, originally made of horse chestnut trees, lines Highland Way, the access driveway that extends south of the house. The horse chestnut trees were later replaced with yellow buckeyes. As visitors travel north along Highland Way, the house appears gradually behind the trees; a pathway continues north on the same axis, running east of the house. A west–east allée, with three rows of trees, runs westward to the river, originating on the southern facade of the house. This contrasted with traditional allées, which often led to formal lawns.

Yet another allée, composed of two rows of honey locust trees, runs along the west side of the house. This allée, which is intended to shade the house, separates the house on one side from the meadow and river on the other. For visual consistency, all of the trees in the western allée are typically replaced even if only a few trees die or are damaged. Crushed stone surrounds the trees in the western allée. In contrast to traditional allées, which terminate at a building, the western allée is bisected by the house, continuing north and south from either end. Art was displayed at each end of the western allée when the Millers lived there; the north end contained Henry Moore's sculpture Draped Reclining Woman, while the south end included a bas relief by Jacques Lipchitz at the south.

The house sits on a platform that extends 25 feet (7.6 m) outward from the house's footprint, creating a terrace garden. The platform measures 9 inches (230 mm) thick. Within the platform, a 10-foot-wide (3.0 m) outdoor terrace made of terrazzo abuts the house on all sides. Ivy plantings extend a further 15 feet (4.6 m) from the terrace, where a slate coping surrounds the terrace. Kiley's original plan called for the terrace to extend the platform's entire 25-foot width, but he scaled it back to 10 feet, allowing greenery to be planted closer to the house.

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