The Root Glass Company is well known for their famous Coca-Cola® bottle design. Chapman J. Root moved to Terre Haute in 1900, and his team of designers developed the familiar green bottle in 1916. Chapman J. Root died in 1945, and left an estimated $11 million estate to his grandson, Chapman S. Root. There is not an abundant source of information about this estate, but I have recently had the opportunity to visit and photograph a property once owned by the Root family. Whether or not it is the $11 million estate is a mystery to me, so I will pursue the history of the property throughout this blog.
The property is locally known as "Rocky Edge" or "Root House" and is located in southern Vigo County, in the upscale Allendale neighborhood, tucked away and secluded from Highway 41. It sits within a hillside, and sprawls several acres of lightly wooded land. At first glance, the structures throughout the property appear normal. As you walk around the property and inside the house, you will begin to understand that this place is anything but normal.
A private holder, who fairly recently purchased the property and began to renovate and restore the property, now owns the estate. Unfortunately, the 2008 flood destroyed several neighboring homes, and property values have gone down significantly. My fascination with this property is not merely for the fact that the Root's owned the land; it is for the lavish style and craftsmanship that was used to build it.
Based on firsthand knowledge, and by once speaking with the current owner, I began to realize what Rocky Edge was all about. With its architecture, detail, planning and a clear display of creativity, Rocky Edge served as a party house during the 20's and 30's and beyond. Guests would travel long distances to participate in the adult jollity of Rocky Edge. A former guest exclaimed that the only thing that went on at Rocky Edge was "sex and spirits" with like-minded people. As a visitor, you can feel it was a place of importance, and design. Every inch of the property had been carefully touched and created by hand, and treated with visual expressions of grandeur.
As you walk through the house, you'll notice several small rooms and passages that lead to other rooms. You will come upon several staircases, some carefully hidden and positioned so as to not receive attention. When you venture down a carefully designed spiral staircase, you come across the bottom landing area, where partygoers would have entered. Servants would help guests with keys and coats, and valuables would be locked in a large vault. A few steps away from the landing, is a pool room, featuring a walkaround the foundation of the pool located at the bottom of the estate. A bathroom sits in the bottom level, although not prominently. From this bathroom, a long narrow walkway stretches beneath the pool to an outside exit.
The Rocky Edge pool is an amazing structure, with a carefully constructed metal top, and thand iled surface. The pool boasts glass, light covers have a distinctive texture, and the top would have had glass panels. Although most of the glass has been removed, fallen or stored, some still remains.
I will continue to write, and research Rocky Edge. I like to imagine the drive to Rocky Edge back when nothing existed between it and downtown Terre Haute. I am trying to learn more about the artists involved in the creation of the estate, and those that would come and party at Rocky Edge.
Have you learned anything more about Rocky Edge?
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