Homes form a picturesque backdrop of local life, and while facades can be beautiful, it’s the stories inside that make homes shine. Ahead, learn what makes eight residences — from an 1880s Italianate villa to charming Southern-inspired custom builds — feel like home for the people who live there.
East Chandler Avenue (at top)
Location: East Side: Vann Park neighborhood
Designer: Unknown
Year Built: 1961
Style: Colonial Revival
Significant Stats: 6,884 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: Moving from Atlanta, Georgia, to Evansville in 2023, George Evans and Marcus Johns were drawn to what Johns calls “a classy, timeless style” with decorative molding, louvered doors, and three fireplaces. But they felt updates were needed. Outside, they painted the red brick cream, keeping the home bright but avoiding the starkness of pure white. Adding warmth is the mahogany front door with glass inserts. Colonial Classics Landscape & Nursery installed a new front landscape with dogwoods, hostas, hydrangeas, petunias, and liriopes, plus rows of boxwood along the walkway. Owensboro, Kentucky’s NiteLiters, Inc., delivered exterior lighting, illuminating the outside’s fresh, new look. Inside, Evans and Johns partnered with Signature Homes by Tony Arvin to remodel the kitchen and several bathrooms. There’s ample space for Evans’ impressive Christmas village collection, and the garage fits his three classic vehicles. The couple and their two corgis enjoy hosting a party during the holidays, inviting friends and neighbors over for dinner, and breathing new life into the 65-year-old residence. “This home has a timeless, almost genteel presence,” Johns says. “We think she is quietly delighted with her refresh.”
East Chandler Avenue
Location: East Side: Lincolnshire Historic District
Builder: Anderson & Veatch
Year Built: 1929
Style: Tudor Revival
Significant Stats: 5,200 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: Growing up just south of Lincolnshire, Michael Pruitt noticed this stunning Tudor Revival while walking to classes at Saint Benedict Cathedral School and Reitz Memorial High School. “It was one of my favorite houses,” he recalls. Michael and his wife, Betsy, snatched it up for themselves 14 years ago, and “we have loved every chapter of living here,” Betsy says. “When we moved in, our kids” — the Pruitts have four — “were at Saint Ben’s and Memorial, and now, they still come home, with their significant others and children. We have added an extra bedroom, making sure it’s always a place to land.” Its large chimney in front is a unique feature; it pokes out of a roof with an imposing vertical slope. Michael cites the house’s “great front porch and side porch off my office.” Speaking of porches, the Pruitts are big fans of the Lincolnshire Front Porch Fest staged on surrounding streets each autumn because it spotlights the neighborhood’s mix of French, English Tudor, Colonial, and cottage design styles. The Pruitts credit PMG Landscaping and Matt’s Turf and More for boosting their property’s curb appeal. The house, Michael says, is “beautiful, quirky, and has some scars — kind of like us.”
York Road
Location: East Side: St. Michael’s Court
Designer and Builder: Rick Doss Homes, Inc.
Year Built: 1989
Style: Georgian Colonial
Significant Stats: Approximately 9,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: Kathy Berry fell in love with Southern architecture during trips to the East Coast. When the time came for her and her late husband, John, to build a home to raise their three sons, she knew where to turn for inspiration. “I took pictures of the homes in Savannah and Charleston and tore pictures from magazines to get ideas,” she says. Homebuilder Rick Doss designed an elegant residence with molding, formal elements, five fireplaces, and a large kitchen with a wood-burning fireplace that the Berrys always wanted. Hand-molded oversized red brick is laid in a Flemish bond (a whole brick, then a half brick) on the symmetrical facade. Four dormers cover arched windows decorating the roof of the three-story brick home. Holly trees, boxwood, burning bushes, azaleas, and hydrangeas line the elevated brick front walkway — and inspire the floral artwork Kathy, a devoted gardener, creates to benefit The Women’s Hospital’s Garden of Peace. She now shares the home with her husband, Jeff. “The inside is very Southern, but we’ve been told it’s such a warm, comfortable house,” Kathy says. “That just really pleases me because that’s my aim.”
Washington Avenue
Location: East Side
Designer and Builder: Unknown
Year Built: 1949
Style: French Country
Significant Stats: 8,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 4 full and 2 half bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: The statuesque home just east of Ascension St. Vincent’s hospital campus is a standout, and Phyllis Stilwell Johnson certainly noticed it — she drove by frequently, admired its grandeur, and bought it about a dozen years ago with her husband, Dr. David Johnson, who passed away in March 2025. Their first goal? Restoring the original yellow hue. “It had changed over time to more of a sand color,” Stilwell Johnson says. “I remembered the beauty of the house (when it was) new.” Deciding the exterior needed more than a paint job, the family also worked hard on landscaping, planting azaleas, fire bushes, and lilacs to go with tulip trees. “I call it ‘the forest,’” Stilwell Johnson says. She decorates the large front porch for holidays. “I enjoy that it has the second, smaller porch area that I can use when I go in and out to the bush and growth area,” she says. The original small home on the site was part of Hebron Meadows subdivision; late commercial realty developer Robert Woodward Jr. and his family tore down most of that structure and added the existing home soon after buying the double lot in 1999. Stilwell Johnson says it continues to serve her family well: Three children and eight grandchildren often come calling. “It’s very open and user-friendly, and that’s why I’m staying,” she says.
Victoria Green Boulevard
Location: East Side: Sutherland subdivision
Builder: John Pickens
Year Built: 2007
Style: Southern Victorian
Significant Stats: 2,532 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: When Sandy Feagley first saw a commercial for a new development called Sutherland, she often drove through to admire its Southern splendor. But it took her son, Brian, moving into the neighborhood and a nudge from her granddaughter, Kiah, for Sandy and her husband, Stephen, to relocate from Newburgh in 2020. “Living close to my son and my daughter-in-law is a blessing,” Sandy says. She was drawn to the neighborhood by “the architecture and how beautifully the homes were kept.” Sandy’s favorite place to relax is the sunroom, but she also enjoys the walled-in lot’s privacy, plus a surrounding sense of community. “People walking always stop to say something when we open the gates of our back patio,” she says. Heart pine floors are original, as are the crown molding, wraparound front porch, and boxwood installed for original owner Richard Campbell. Stephen enjoys the small patios and easy-to-maintain outdoor spaces dotted with hydrangeas, mountain laurel, Japanese maples, colorful nandina, variegated liriope, ornamental grasses, coral bells, and an azalea. He also takes care of the small koi pond installed by Colonial Classics Landscape & Nursery. When passing by, walk alongside the home to catch a glimpse of its impressive hostas.
Southeast Second Street
Location: Riverside Historic District
Designer: Josse Vrydagh
Year Built: 1871
Style: Italianate
Significant Stats: About 5,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: Chapters of River City history are packed in the house near First Presbyterian Church where David and Chris Brown have lived since 1998. During World War II, it was a boarding house for workers who built landing ship-tanks at Evansville Shipyard. Completed in 1871 for lawyer, judge, and civic leader Asa Iglehart and his family, the house still casts a dignified presence today. The muted sage green paint, added by the Browns shortly after they moved in, “complements the cream/white trim,” Chris says. Landscaping handled by the couple pops with red, pink, and white azaleas and an iron bench and birdbath. Passersby often take notice and stop for pictures or even videos: “We love that people enjoy our yard and feel extremely flattered that they would choose to use it as a backdrop,” Chris says. She and David are empty nesters with kids and grandkids who visit, and they plan to stay put in their statuesque 19th century home along with their Bernadoodle, Bradley. “Any home requires maintenance and expenses, and so does this,” Chris says. “But I feel like it’s worth it. I feel very happy here.”
Canterbury Drive
Location: East Side: St. Michael’s Court
Builder: Raul Rundus Construction
Architect: Dan Engelbrecht, Hafer
Year Built: 1986
Style: Williamsburg-inspired
Significant Stats: 6,114 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: Dennis and Margaret Haire were comfortable in their 1937 French Normandy home in Lincolnshire, but a desire to grow their family made them consider relocating. An open lot on the hilltop on Canterbury Drive — “Our grandkids call it Fort Canterbury,” Dennis says — let them build to their specifications and have a panoramic view of the neighborhood. Wanting to keep the charm of an older home, the Haires were drawn to Williamsburg, Virginia, architecture. “We’ve always liked the aesthetics of Colonial homes,” Margaret says. “We designed for our family, but also wanted the layout to flow nicely.” The couple relied on bricks, pecan hardwood, and virgin heart pine beams and columns from an 1855 Henderson, Kentucky, cotton mill. Cast iron stars from the mill add a decorative touch. With the antique brick and divided light windows (in which narrow muntins break up the glass panes), it “looks old but has a lot of modern elements,” Dennis says. Margaret frequents the garden room, which has a 13-foot ceiling, a large half-circle window, and double-glassed six-foot door. One of Dennis’ favorite spots is the antique pecan-floored library, where the Haires house their books, specifically those related to Evansville and Civil War history. “It’s a calming room,” Dennis says. “There’s always something to read.”
West Jennings Street
Location: Newburgh
Builder: Elpers Brothers Construction, Inc.
Designer: H.G. McCullough Designers, Inc.
Year Built: 2021
Style: Modern Victorian
Significant Stats: 4,000 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
Why It Stands Out: This home is the new kid on a very old block. After setbacks renovating a traditional Victorian, as written about in the September/October 2022 issue, Cindy and Steve Basinski changed tack and built a new Victorian dream home. Four years after moving into Newburgh’s historic Downtown, they’re still in heaven. “It has a fresh feel to it,” Cindy says. The statuesque exterior with its fish-scale roof, copper-topped bay window, and gingerbread trim has become a popular backdrop for prom and wedding parties, who pose in front of the white-painted Western red cedar, red brick stairs, custom high-gloss red mahogany double front doors, and manicured landscaping. “I love that we’re part of people’s memories,” Cindy says. “It’s nice to have people appreciate your home in that way.” After living on a secluded lot on Newburgh Road, the Basinskis enjoy being in the middle of the action. “Lots of people come by and say, ‘You did a really good job renovating this house!’ That’s perfect; we wanted it to seem like it was here all the time,” Cindy says. “We accomplished what we set out to do.”
