John L. Nichols House

The John L. Nichols House is a historic former residence in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. Built in a late variety of the Victorian style of architecture, it was constructed in 1900. Once the home of Bloomington's leading architect, it is no longer a residence, but it has been designated a historic site.
Born in Bloomington in 1859, John L. Nichols was the first architect to practice in the city, and the only one active in the city for much of his life. As a leading member of local society, he was commissioned to design many city buildings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; for example, he and his company produced over six hundred designs in 1908 alone. Many of the most prominent structures on Courthouse Square downtown are his work. However, he refused to limit himself to large-scale commercial construction: among his most prominent works is the Batman-Waldron House of 1895, which a local historic preservation survey has described as the city's "most eccentric mansion." Smaller residences were also within his purview; in 1902, he published a complete book of residential designs, many of which combined elements from the Neoclassical, Queen Anne, Romanesque Revival, and Stick styles to produce a distinctive and popular style that local historians have called "Free Classic."

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