The Tudor Revival residence at 4140 North Illinois Street was built in 1925 by Guy Alwyn Wainwright (1889-1956) and Jeanette Harvey Wainwright (1894-1949). At the time the recently-wed couple built their new home, Guy Wainwright was vice president and general manager of the Diamond Chain Company. He went on to become president of Diamond Chain in 1931 and chairman of the board in 1955. Incorporated in 1890 as the Indianapolis Steel Castings Company by Charles E. Test, Arthur C. Newby, Edward C. Fletcher, and Glen C. Howe,  the firm's roller chains were originally created for bicycles, which were the latest craze in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, however, the founders' interests had turned to automobiles.  In 1905, the corporation was purchased by Guy Wainwright’s father, Lucius Morton Wainwright (1860-1931), who renamed it Diamond Chain Company and expanded its products to serve other industries.   Diamond chains were used in the Wright Brothers’ first flying machine and in Henry Ford’s first automobile. Today, the company’s products serve a diverse range of manufacturing enterprises. The Wainwrights owned Diamond Chain from 1905 until 1950, when it was sold to American Steel Foundries (now known as Amsted Industries).      Guy and Jeanette Wainwright owned the property for 32 years. Their three sons, William, Thomas, and Stephen, grew up in the home. The youngest, Stephen, a noted biologist and retired Duke University professor, is still living.    The land that accompanies the residence is comprised of four building lots that were originally intended to have a home constructed on each of them. However, the Wainwrights purchased three lots adjacent to the lot on which their home was to be built, making a combined total of almost two acres. As a result of the additional land, the property extends from Illinois Street on the east to Capitol Avenue on the west. It has ingress and egress on both thoroughfares. Because the property has more footage fronting on Capitol Avenue than it does on Illinois Street, the City assigned it the address of 4139 North Capitol Avenue back in 1925. It was known by the Capitol Avenue address throughout the Wainwrights' ownership and well into the second owners' residency. In recent years, the address was changed to 4140 North Illinois Street, a more logical approach to the house for guests. The long driveway at the east entrance to the property ascends to the home on the hill through a stunning wooded lot.    In December of 1924, the application for the building permit described the proposed construction as a two-story residence with basement and attached garage. It was estimated that the materials and labor would cost about $50,000. That projected figure was only for the construction of the home; it did not include the cost of the purchase of the land prior to improvements. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, the cost to build the house in 1924 would be equivalent to more than $700,000 today.    Construction of the home began early in 1925 and was completed by the end of that same year. The architectural firm the Wainwrights hired for the project was Osler and Burns. Willard Osler and Lee Burns were known for designing churches such as Trinity Episcopal, First Congregational, and Second Presbyterian, as well as for designing commercial buildings like the English Foundation, Broad Ripple Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Center, and several buildings at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Osler and Burns also designed the former Marmon house downtown that is now home to the University Club, as well as another former Marmon residence in Brendonwood.    According to the city's property tax records, the total area of the home, including the basement and attached garages, is 7,113 square feet. A considerable portion of the home’s exterior is brick, laid in the Flemish Bond style of alternating the long sides of the bricks and the short ends of the bricks. The remainder of the home’s exterior is stucco with false half-timbering. The roof is slate, and the gutters are copper. An unusual feature protruding from the east façade of the home is a three-story rounded structure that is primarily glass, which was added a few years after the original home was built. Subtle personalized decorative touches appear around the home, such as the year "1925" carved in wood above the front door and the initials "G W" soldered onto the copper scupper box near the northwest corner of the house.  Within a few months after Guy Wainwright’s death, the property was purchased from his estate by Richard Austin Cochran (1915-2001) and his wife, Jessie Hall Cochran (1923-1967). Dick was president of the A. B. Cochran Construction Company. Among the many projects his firm built over the years were the Indianapolis Day Nursery, Hendricks County Hospital, and the hangar at the Mount Comfort Airport. A. B. Cochran also constructed additions to Broad Ripple High School and Carmel High School and made upgrades to the Indiana Governor’s Mansion after it moved to its present location at 46th and Meridian Streets.     Two years after Jessie Cochran’s 1967 death, Richard Cochran married Patricia Jameson Acheson (1919-2016). Patty was the great-great-granddaughter of Ovid Butler (1801-1881), one of the founders of, and the man for whom, Butler University was named. She was also the grandniece of author and playwright, Newton Booth Tarkington (1869-1946).  For the remaining years of Patty’s life, which was nearly half-a-century, 4140 North Illinois Street was the site of many family gatherings and social events.  After Patty passed away in December of 2016, the property was inherited jointly by the widow of her older son, John Huyler Acheson (1942-2014), and her younger son, Donald Jameson Acheson. Don purchased his brother's half of the estate from his sister-in-law, thus making Don the sole owner. The extended Cochran family has now owned the property for 61 years. In the summer of 2017, Don and his wife, Clare Fox Acheson, graciously agreed to allow St. Margaret's Hospital Guild to make the property its 2018 Decorators’ Show House and Gardens.   There is an interesting backstory to the 93-year history of the Wainwright-Cochran House. Despite its being nearly a century old, neither it nor any of the other houses that surround it was the very first home to be built there. For more than four decades, the home of a respected pioneer family had a commanding presence on that land. In 1882, William Alexander Ketcham (1846-1921) and Flora McDonald Ketcham (1846-1938) bought 13.8 acres in Washington Township, bounded by what would later become 41st Street on the south, 42nd Street on the north, Illinois Street on the east, and Senate Avenue (now called Boulevard Place) on the west. At the time the Ketchams moved there from downtown Indianapolis, the sparsely populated area was considered out in the country.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Ketcham were from families that had been among Marion County's earliest settlers. William Ketcham's paternal grandfather, John Ketcham (1782-1865), came to Indiana in 1811, was a colonel in the state militia, and was a founder of Indiana University. William Ketcham's maternal grandfather, Samuel Merrill (1792-1855), came to Indiana in 1816, the year that it became the nineteenth state, and was Indiana's first treasurer. Sam Merrill was the man who led the wagon caravan from Corydon to Indianapolis late in 1824, moving all of the state's records, office equipment, and funds from the old capitol to the new capitol. Mrs. Ketcham’s father, David McDonald (1803-1869), settled in Bloomington in the 1820s, was a United States District Court Judge, and was the first professor of law at the Indiana University School of Law. William Ketcham himself was an officer in the Civil War, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic after the war, and served two terms as Attorney General of Indiana.    Atop the knoll between what is now the west side of the 4100 block of Illinois Street and the east side of the 4100 block of Capitol Avenue, William and Flora Ketcham built a 19-room mansion. Locals referred to the family's property as "Ketcham Hill" and "Ketcham Woods," which were obvious references to its physical setting. However, the family also called their house "Robinwood." The Ketchams reared seven children there: Flora, Agnes, Jane, Lilla, Henry, Lucia, and Dorothy. They became doctors, lawyers, and teachers.   Robinwood might still be standing today, had it not been destroyed by a devastating fire in the winter of 1923.  For about a year after the fire, the Mapleton Civic Association,  a forerunner of the Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association (BTNA), lobbied the City of Indianapolis to buy the Ketchams' land and make it into a community park. The nearby 300-acre Fairview Park had for many years been a popular recreational location for Mapleton residents, but in 1922, Fairview Park had been purchased by Irvington-based Butler College and would soon become the new campus of Butler University. Mapleton residents were concerned about no longer having a nearby park.     The City of Indianapolis and the widowed 78-year-old Flora Ketcham could not reach an agreement, so in 1924, Mrs. Ketcham split the acreage into fourteen building lots. Fortunately, for the Wainwrights, the Cochrans, and the Achesons, four of those lots have been "home" for their families for nearly a century. Fortunately, for St. Margaret's Hospital Guild, the Wainwright-Cochran House is "home” to the 57th Annual Decorators' Show House and Gardens in April and May of 2018.