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Cole Porter's home is now a museum, B&B

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Hollywood, CA
Cole Porter's home is now a museum, B&B

PERU, Ind. - Fans of Cole Porter have transformed the composer's childhood home into a museum and a bed and breakfast.

Several hundred people attended Friday's dedication of the two-story wood frame house where Porter was born in 1891 and lived for his first 10 years. He learned to play the piano and violin there, and it was where he composed his first song, a tune dedicated to his mother, Kate.

Over the decades, the house about 65 miles north of Indianapolis had fallen into disrepair and was even used as a methampethamine lab.

But determined fans intervened to save and restore it with funding from the nonprofit Ole Olsen Memorial Theatre, a Peru group that bought the home in 2004.

"From meth lab to magic," Peru Mayor Jim Walker said.

Porter, who died in 1964, wrote more than 1,500 songs for stage, movies and television, including such standards as "Night and Day," "Anything Goes" and "I've Got You Under My Skin."
 

Fletch

I'll Lock Up
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Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
Fantastic news. I visited Peru (PEEroo) several years back and was distressed at how the home had fallen into squalor.

However, I enjoyed the exhibit at the Miami County Museum on Main Street, which included Porter's 1955 Cadillac. I also paid my respects with a saxophone solo at the family plot in the municipal cemetery, where Mr. P reposes just 2 blocks from the Mr. Weenie hotdog stand. :D Ah, small-town America.
 

HadleyH

I'll Lock Up
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4,811
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Top of the Hill
Excellent news!!!
II'd also love to see Cole's nine room bachelor apartment on the 33rd floor of the Waldor Astoria, his last home, full of French furniture and parquetry with English heirlooms, valuable Chinese art and contemporary decorations ;)
It was so spectacular that Vogue magazine showed many photos of it at the time! Do you think it still exists? Wow.
 

HadleyH

I'll Lock Up
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4,811
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Top of the Hill
Still on Porter

,,,and what about the home he shared with Linda in Paris between 1920 and 1937? It was in 13 Rue Monsieur in the elegant Invalides quartier, near the Eiffel Tower...
-The house had a circular black and white marble entrance
- a staircase of white marble lead to the apartments above
-the great salon with cream taffeta hangings, Chinese laquered tables, statues and bowls.
-persian rugs on the floor
-bowls of flowers everywhere
-full sized ebony Steinway :D making a striking contrast to red-laquered armchairs
-the library was cover in platinum paper...and on...and on...and on


no wonder he wrote...

"Why don't we try staying at home?
Why don't we try not to roam?
What if we threw a party or two
And asked only me and you?
Wouldn't that be nice?
We've tried ev'ry thing else twice
So why don't we try staying home?


What a museum that 'd have made.
Sadly no plaque adorns 13 Rue Monsieur today.
 

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