Skiles Edward Test
and the
House of Blue LIghtsFrom The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis
Portrait of Skiles Test and of his grave site.
House of Blue Lights. Folk legend. Millionaire Skiles Edward Test (1889-1964) was president of Indianapolis Motor Inns, part owner of the Test Building on Monument Circle, and heir to the Diamond Chain Company fortune. In 1913 Test bought the farmhouse at 6700 Fall Creek Road as a home for himself and his first wife. (Test eventually owned hundreds of acres on the northeast side of Indianapolis and donated the land for the Skiles E. Test Elementary School.) An amateur inventor and architect, Test sided the farmhouse in white opaque tile, added glass brick additions, and decorated the interior with glass as well. The trees around the house he strung with blue lights. He also added a three-story bathhouse, with basement, sun deck, and elevator, and a 40-by-80-foot swimming pool, with solar heating system, three-story diving complex, and motorized surf board. Extremely fond of animals, Test created separate dog and cat parks for his hundreds of pets and also maintained a private pet cemetery
Test was already known for his lavish parties when, in the early 1940s, the "House of Blue Lights" legend began to circulate. In the most common variant, Test was a recluse who kept the body of his wife in a glass coffin surrounded by blue lights and guarded by vicious dogs. Adolescents invaded the property at night to investigate the story in what became a local initiation ritual. Test tolerated the trespassing until the 1950s when the vandalism forced him to erect a fence around the property. As the House of Blue Lights legend spread, vandalism increased. Trespassers set fire to the outbuildings, broke into the house, injured the animals, and on several occasions exploded dynamite on the property
Following Test’s death, a three-day public estate auction in May 1964, drew over 50,000 souvenir seekers who vied for such items as hundreds of pet caskets, cases of canned food, pairs of shoes. record albums and nail kegs. The Test estate bequeathed the property, including the house and 86 heavily wooded acres, to the Department of Parks and Recreation. Despite widespread public protest and interest in the structure bv the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana. The Board of Parks and Recreation razed the house and all outbuildings on the property in 1978. The site is now being developed as Skiles Test Park.
Vickie J. West
References:
Linda Degh, "The House of Blue Lights in Indianapolis," in Indiana Folklore: A Reader, ed. Linda Degh (Bloomington, Ind., 1980), 179-195; Lisa Leviin, "The Estate to Top All Estates, Indianapolis Magazine, 18 (Feb., 1981), 113-117.
The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis Edited by David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G. Barrows. A project of the Polis Research Center of Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Article scanned and checked for accuracy by Robert W. Test 11/17/99. Posted on website: 11/17/1999