Nickum had the money to build the house as he had supplied the Union Army in Indianapolis with hardtack, a form of cracker despised by soldiers, during the Civil War.

Nickum's daughter, Magdalena, and her husband Charles Holstein, a lawyer, would possess it when, in 1893, they invited noted poet James Whitcomb Riley to live with them.

He would later, presumably at the behest of Booth Tarkington, transfer ownership to the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association five years later.

[12][13] The structure is a two-story brick house on a stone foundation and full basement that is considered an excellent example of Italianate architecture typical of the neighborhood's homes built in the 1860s and 1870s.

Slate shingles cover a roof which has wide overhanging eaves and decorated brackets, and is low-pitched hipped.