The Lindsay House is a historic building located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It was listed, misspelled as the Linsay House, on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.[1] The house was built in 1893 by John Jayne, an Iowa City bridge builder. The plans for the 2½-story, frame, Queen Anne were purchased from George F. Barber and Co.[2] It features a chimney that takes up an entire corner of the main facade, a stone arch that surrounds the first-floor window with leaded glass in a sunflower pattern, a wrap-around porch with a corner turret, and a three-story octagonal tower behind it.
Jayne gave the house as a wedding gift to his daughter, Ella, and her husband, John Granger Lindsay. The Lindsays moved to Chicago in 1913. It was the Theta Xi fraternity Xi chapter house from 1914[3]-1915.[4] The house was subsequently divided into apartments, and in 2005 became a 10-bedroom unit of the River City Housing Collective.[5][6]
Berkeley Breathed, who wrote the comic stripBloom County, called the house one of "the ugliest houses in the five-state area... Six different architectural styles in one house is a milestone at least and at most a landmark to bad taste".[5] Breathed used the house as the model for the boarding house where Bloom County is partially set.[7]
