Nicholson-Rand House

A Gothic Revival mansion built in the 1870s in the Old Northside Historic District. The striking red brick home with its pointed dormers and ornate woodwork has served as a private residence for over 150 years.

The Nicholson-Rand House is considered the finest example of American Gothic Revival architecture in Marion County, a Victorian masterpiece of intricate scrollwork, decorated rafter tails, and multiple dormer windows inspired by the designs of Andrew Jackson Downing. It was built between 1870 and 1876 by David Nicholson, a stonemason born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland in 1823, who came to Indianapolis in 1852 and became partner in the firm of Scott and Nicholson. The firm constructed the stonework of the Marion County Courthouse, whose cornerstone was laid in 1872. Nicholson's first wife Marion died in 1870, and he soon remarried, which appears to have motivated building the fine country house. The couple divorced within three years, and Nicholson sold the house to Marion County Commissioner Allison Remy in 1879. From 1903 to 1960, the Rand family owned the home, after which it was abandoned during the 1970s and nearly lost to urban sprawl.

Nobody knew the house was haunted until more than a century after it was built. In 1997, the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana moved the house half a mile south from its original location on Southport Road to save it from demolition. During the move, a newspaper photographer captured an image that appeared on the front page and stopped Indianapolis in its tracks: the clear image of a little girl with blond hair wearing a blue dress, staring out of the center second-story window at the workers below. No one was inside the house at the time. The photograph became one of Indianapolis's most famous ghost images and transformed the Nicholson-Rand House into a household name overnight.

The girl in the window is believed to be the spirit of a child killed in an accident near the house, though her identity has never been confirmed. Since the photograph, paranormal investigators have conducted numerous investigations at the house and most have documented activity. An unverified story claims a boarding house resident hanged himself in an upstairs bedroom during the home's later years of decline, and witnesses have reported the smell of decaying flesh and blood dripping through the walls in that area. There are also unconfirmed accounts, similar to those surrounding the nearby Hannah House, that the Nicholson House was a stop on the Underground Railroad and that a group of fugitives hiding in the basement perished when the space caught fire, with the family sealing off the basement to avoid prosecution. While no historical documentation has verified the Underground Railroad connection, screams allegedly echo through the house that some attribute to this tragedy. Visitors also report encounters with the spirit of a benign woman who seems to watch over the property, separate from the little girl. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 and has since been offered for sale as a residential property, with its haunted reputation following it through every listing.