Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
“The House of a Preacher Unretouched” is how the Arts and Crafts Homes magazine described Winona Lake’s Billy Sunday Home in a four-page feature article several years ago.
The Billy Sunday Home, which the Sunday family named Mount Hood, was the home of Winona Lake’s most famous residents, Billy Sunday and his wife Helen and their family. While first visiting Winona in 1899, the world-renowned evangelist and his family rented rooms in a boarding house on Park Avenue. Their stay in the newly-developed resort was so enjoyable that they decided to purchase their own cottage.
For 11 years, the Chicago residents summered in Winona and lived in a cottage called the Illinois, located on the present site of Mount Hood on Ludlow Avenue (subsequently named Billy Sunday Lane). Deciding to make Winona their permanent home, Billy and “Ma” had the Illinois moved across the street and their Mount Hood bungalow constructed in 1911. The Sundays, their four children and a housekeeper lived there. Mrs. Sunday, who died in 1957, was the last living member of the family, and in her will she requested the home be preserved as a testimony to her husband’s ministry and his memory.
A visit to Mount Hood bungalow, the Billy Sunday home at 1111 Sunday Lane, Winona Lake, is a trip back in time. With its original furnishings and decorating, the home offers a glimpse not only of the Sundays’ lives, but of what life was like in the early 1900s.
The house is a superb example of the Arts and Crafts bungalow style which is characterized by horizontal massing and simplified detailing. While the exterior has been altered with artificial siding, the interior remains intact. The home contains many artifacts of Billy’s baseball and evangelistic crusade days, as well as beautiful examples of fine needlework done by “Ma.”
Brent Wilcoxson, former managing director of the Village at Winona and the one responsible for the design and rebirth of the Village, said the Billy Sunday home is in the top 1 percent of art and craft bungalows in the United States. The home was restored according to Interior Department guidelines in 2000.
In describing the home, the Arts & Crafts magazine said, “The one-and-a-half story bungalow has a porch and foundation of pressed concrete block that was made by a local company. Under a reverse-cove ceiling, the painted stencil design on walls is clearly Art Nouveau.”
Knowledgeable visitors describe the home’s architecture as “classic Stickley.” Gustav Stickley (1858–1942) was an American furniture manufacturer, design leader, publisher and a leading voice in the American Arts and Crafts movement. Stickley's design philosophy was a major influence on American Craftsman architecture.
Remarkably, virtually all furnishing in the home are the property of the original owners. Downstairs visitors will see the appliances in Mrs. Sunday’s kitchen, a mantel clock given to the Sundays as a wedding present in 1888, several cabinets of Mr. Sunday’s books from which he created sermons, and a unique “Hall of Presidents” with autographed photos of Presidents Coolidge, Harding, Taft, Hoover, Truman and more.
Upstairs, in addition to the bedrooms, the original study for Mr. Sunday displays more autographed photos of notable friends and acquaintances of the Sundays — John. D. Rockefeller, H. J. Heinz, Cecil B. DeMille, Gen. John “Blackjack” Pershing, John Wanamaker, Buffalo Bill Cody and more.
Tours of the Sunday home are available 2-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and are arranged through the Winona History Center, which is in the west wing of Westminster Hall at 105 Ninth St., Winona Lake. Tours may be arranged by e-mailing winonamuseum@grace.edu or by calling 574-372-5193.
