Updated November 2024
Some people call it "the dolphin mansion” or “the crazy house.”
Neighbors have planted trees to avoid the sight of it. It’s been marketed as a potential co-working space, a Miami/LA-style party house for the opulent set, or perhaps ground zero of a deep-pocketed investor’s Airbnb goldmine. This is the story of how a nearly 30,000-square-foot mansion on Kessler Boulevard was built and how one man’s quest for absolute luxury gave Indianapolis the ugliest mansion in America.
The Mansion Itself | Photo via Sarah Murrell
It began with one structure, a three-bedroom ranch home owned by small-time construction magnate Jerry Hostetler, better known in his heyday as “Mr. Big.” Hostetler stood nearly 7 feet tall, a heavy-set man known by the nickname Indianapolis police coined during his time as a prolific pimp. Hostetler was convicted of the crime in 1964 and later transitioned into the construction business, which has the same vaguely criminal associations as “waste management.” Although his later business checked out as legitimate in the eyes of the law, Hostetler seemed allured by, even addicted to, propping himself up as a large-living local rake who let someone else worry about the consequences.
A probation officer entrusted with monitoring Hostetler was quoted as saying, "When asked how he became involved in the [pimping] business, [Hostetler] said it was difficult to pass up that easy money." What started out as easy money in the pimping biz turned into even bigger, easier, and much more legal money in the form of construction loans. Despite his checkered past, it seemed banks (and “banks”) were eager to loan to Hostetler, and he was happy to take the money in pursuit of his fantasy home.
Like so many egomaniacal grifters, Hostetler had an empire in mind, and the three-bedroom ranch was to be the seed. He bought up the houses around his one by one and used his construction connections to join them together.
Jerry Hostetler in the mansion | Photo via Daily Mail
A particular verb pops up again and again in photo spreads of the ad-hoc constructed house: “cobbled.”
The section of the compound that faces the road functions similarly to the top of an iceberg. Hostetler apparently preferred the gerbil habitat vibe when joining the five houses, and an overhead view of the property reveals the narrow hallways and round nodes of rooms that stitch together the architectural monster. The Kessler Mansion looks like an amoeba photographed just as it engulfs weaker single-cell organisms.
It falls under no particular genre of home design, with some nods to Spanish in some places and downright medieval in others. Many rooms have Cathedral ceilings while others are cramped as if drawn by a shipbuilder. Some walls are stark white stucco, and some walls are made of heavy, round stones cemented into place like a meade hall. Hostetler built turrets, ballrooms, wet bars, and even a Playboy-style grotto complete with a hot tub.
In short, the Kessler Mansion looks like a house designed by a committee of drunk 14-year-old boys in 1985. There are rooms that would’ve been rejected by the Scarface set design team as “a little too much,” especially in a part of town known for its modestly upscale family homes. Even if it were plopped next door to Scott Jones’ gothic-by-way-of-Tudor mega-lodge in Carmel, it would seem excessive and gaudy.
The Mansion From Above | Photo via Sun Commercial
The problem with all that easy money is it spends just as easily, and judging by the unpaid bills Hostetler left behind, it’s a safe bet that he would’ve spent as much as the bank would’ve loaned him.
It’s also a safe bet that, given Hostetler’s appetite for exorbitance — he had ballooned to an estimated 500 pounds by the time of his death in 2006— no amount of custom marble or plaster would ever be enough. If the money had been available, he likely would have knitted the whole neighborhood together into an abominable tangle of balconies, hallways and weirdly-shaped windows.
Hostetler died in deep financial trouble, alone in his crumbling mansion, having filed for bankruptcy several times. He left the mansion to his secretary, Margaret Moore, in what seemed like a magnanimous gesture but turned into a financial quagmire for Moore. When the banks finally seized the house, it was a foreclosure served in courses, as pieces of the house were repossessed, but not the whole. Hostetler had financed each addition separately, so some wings were paid off while others became the property of his creditors.
Moore sold it to Indiana-born entrepreneur Chad Folkening, who still has it listed on Airbnb, though feedback on the site says Folkening has recently been canceling reservations. The direct website for the house is still active, but does not list either a pool or a hot tub as available amenities.
Inside the mansion | Photo via Realtor.com
For a brief period in 2010, the Baha Men, who were being represented by Indy-based agents and producers at the time, rented the mansion during a touring and recording stint.
It’s been used as a co-working space, and the marketing implies it should appeal to wealthy and adventurous startups and family reunions—perhaps the wine-drinking contingent of Duggars.
The house has been featured on HGTV and seems to provide a bottomless clickbait opportunity for everyone from Curbed to HuffPo. And unlike most clickbait, the Kessler Mansion really pays off on the horrified-gasp-to-click ratio.
The future of the monstrous home is still up in the air. Aside from the building’s abjectly repellent look, it probably goes without saying that such a patchwork of construction has made for a maintenance nightmare. The roof(s) leak, there is mildew and mold all over — some neighbors even claim they can smell it from their own homes — and no one wants to foot the bill for the thousands of lightbulbs, BTUs of gas, and gallons of water the cavernous house requires to be livable, never mind restoring it to Hostetler’s vision.
Folkening put the home up for sale in 2012, a small handful of buyers have expressed interest, and a few even qualified to purchase, but none pulled the trigger. For the money, maintenance, and resale value, it seems unlikely to become a single-family home again.
But whoever steps up to take on this globally-known eyesore is in for a lot of work, a lot of money, and a legendarily garish, larger-than-life home — maybe the ghost of its larger-than-life builder, too. If the Hostetler of corporeal being carried over to the spectral realm, it’s hard to imagine Mr. Big being anything but tickled at how many people know his name, thanks to the hideous, spectacular dream home that bled him dry, collapsed his empire, and where his body would lie in unattended state before the coroner arrived.
The property had an estate sale in the summer of 2022, with its notorious dolphin statues supposedly going for $12,500.
More recently, the house was listed for $690,000, a steep drop from the previous listing of $2.2 Million.
What's next? The mansion seems to have been rezoned with plans to turn it into ten luxury apartments. Since the property consists of multiple buildings, plans call for six three-bedroom and four four-bedroom apartments. Other details are up in the air, but only time will tell.
Have some Kessler Mansion lore, facts, or knowledge we should add? Let us know at
[email protected]!
