Have you ever wondered how the IMA ended up in what is at once a beautiful, yet (relatively speaking) a remote, setting? For many people, the answer lies in the 1966 gift of the family estate by the children of J.K. Lilly, Jr.—but true as that is, there’s an even more fascinating story that precedes the Lilly family’s arrival on the site. That’s the story of Hugh McKennan Landon and his partner Linnaes Boyd, who bought 52 acres of land in 1907 which they intended to develop into an enclave of country estates.
Their reasoning was sound. At the time, country estates were all the rage among wealthy Americans, who yearned to escape the noise and pollution of the cities—noise and pollution often created by the very manufacturing plants that had made them wealthy in the first place. And Landon and Boyd’s property at the intersection of Michigan and Maple Roads was both remote enough to qualify as countryside, yet near enough to the city to make commuting easy. (The Interurban rail line ran past on the western edge of the property.) Maple Road, which we know today as 38th St., ended at the White River—there was no bridge at that time.
