Prosser House

This charming little house was built by a decorative plaster craftsman in 1886. Englishman William Prosser (b. 1834) immigrated to America with his three young children, Jennie, Percy J., and William, Jr., in 1870. William’s wife died about this time and he remarried and settled in Indianapolis by 1880. He is consistently listed in directories as a plaster worker or molder and in 1888 he, along with his son Percy J., a plasterer and sculptor, worked at the Indianapolis Terra Cotta Company. It’s not surprising that when he built his house at 1454 E. Tenth Street he applied his trade and made it much more ornate than the average small home of the era.

Luckily, the Historic American Buildings Survey “HABS” documented the house in 1958. The HABS report states that the front room of the house, which was Prosser’s studio, was a later addition made of plaster block. The original, central part of the house was constructed with wood framing. The whole house is covered with stucco scored to look like stone blocks.

Prosser applied decorative elements such as corner quoins, dentils, and ornate gable vents. Decorative gable vent, dentils, and brackets on the east side of the house. The living room ceiling features a center medallion and a geometric pattern. A grapevine pattern is featured in the decorative plaster ceiling cornice in the living room.

Plaster workers did not get a lot of credit for their work, so we know few of the Prosser family’s projects. The son Percy J. Prosser lived in the 900 block of Oriental Street and his stucco house survived into the 1980s but was razed due to its poor condition. The Oriental Street house had crudely-carved plaster lions on either side of a fireplace. It also had an octagonal-shaped stucco outhouse stood in the back yard and it was unusual since it was a three-holer.

William Prosser lost much of his fortune because of union troubles while finishing the interior of the Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis. He and his family then moved to New Orleans and Florida where they continued in the plaster business. After the Prosser family left Indianapolis around 1904, their home was occupied by only a few people. Today the house is in the Windsor Park Neighborhood and East Tenth Street area which are in the midst of a revitalization.