Cole Porter's home to be reopened as museum

Cole Porter's fans have turned the composer's childhood home into a museum and a bed and breakfast.

Photo: Cole Porter's home to be reopened as museum

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."