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Overview

The Reid Brothers, Architects, completed this elaborate, three-story, Second Empire style residence for a successful Evansville dry goods merchant, Watkins F. Nisbet. The Reid Brothers would later transplant their successful practice to CA.

Building History

Watkins F. Nisbet (1825-1886), a local merchant in the Mackey-Nisbet Dry Goods Company, a wholesale dry goods business, lived here with his wife, 8 of his 10 offspring and three servants. Nisbet originally contracted for a house design with Henry Boyd and Henry Brickley, Architects, for whom brothers James and Merritt Reid worked. When Boyd and Brickley closed their office, the Reid Brothers stepped in to complete their commissions.

According to a Facebook.com post by Evansville Historic Homes, a 1880 newspaper article indicated that the New York interior design firm of French and Company coordinated the interior furnishings of the Nisbet House. (Thank you to S.W. Crowley for pointing out this post in an email message to the author, 04/23/2026. See Facebook.com, Evansville Historic Homes, “Nisbet House,” published 03/22/2017, accessed 04/23/2026.)

Building Notes

This 3-story, brick residence dated from 1878-1879 before James W. Reid (1851-1943) left IN for work on the Coronado Hotel, Coronado, CA, in 1886. It was a notable example of the Second Empire Style.

PCAD id: 17549