2128 B St. (Proudfit House)
Current owners: Scott and Susan Bulfinch
2128 B Street
Built in 1909
T.P. Harrison, contractor
Estimated Time to Tour: 15 min
Key Things to See:
★ Restored original electric and gas-electric light fixtures—reinstalled after decades in storage.
★ Artist’s basement studio—complete with fireplace and massive ceiling-mounted radiators.
★ Unconverted attic apartment—now a unique home gym and seasonal storage space.
Ransom Styles Proudfit was president of a lumber, hardware and furniture company at Seventh and O Streets that bore his name. In 1909 he commissioned Thomas Price Harrison to build this house for him and his wife Finette. Harrison was an active builder in the Near South and other Lincoln neighborhoods from the 1880s to the early 1920s. No architect has been identified with this variation of the “Prairie Box” style. However, in 1909 Harrison was also building Maple Lodge, the grand Shingle Style house on Euclid Street designed by Ferdinand Fiske, a style that may be faintly echoed here by the shingle-covering of the dormers. Finette Proudfit was an amateur artist, which likely accounts for the unusual deep window wells provided on the south portion of the finished basement, a space she used for her studio, complete with fireplace and two massive ceiling-mounted radiators.
Ransom Proudfit died in 1925, with his business continuing to operate and expand under the direction of his sons. Finette Proudfit remained in this home until her death in 1946. The house was briefly associated with the Sigma Chi fraternity in which son Frank Proudfit, a 1911 UNL graduate, was active.
In the 1950s the house was bought by a family that initiated its conversion into apartments. Making their own home on the 1st floor, the 2nd floor was divided into two apartments, and the open attic and basement studio were partitioned to provide living and sleeping space for two additional apartments. The sun porch became a home office. In the early 1970s, a new owner partitioned the first floor to add an additional apartment, and the house became a six-plex.
The Woita family purchased the house in the early 1990s and began deconversion, maintaining the house as a tri-plex. Current owners Sue and Scott Bulfinch arrived in 2005 and continued the deconversion into a single-family home.
The house reflects the transitional period of architecture in which it was built, with interior features of classic late Victorian style vying with Arts and Crafts style motifs, sometimes in the same space. The extensive oak and oak veneer woodwork retained remarkable integrity throughout the multi-family period, and the wooden floors were generally protected under wall-to-wall carpeting. While the original electric and gas-electric ceiling fixtures had been removed, they were saved and kept boxed away in the boiler room, and after restoration have been reinstalled throughout the house. While original wall brackets/sconces had all been lost, their locations could generally be discerned and reproductions in sympathetic style to the ceiling fixtures are now installed. The attic apartment has not been de-converted, and is used by the owners as a home gym with side rooms for seasonal storage.