Carole Lombard house interior view showing some of the rooms

The Carole Lombard House A bed and breakfast

	704 Rockhill Street Fort Wayne, Indiana Ph: (260) 426-9896 or: (888) 426-9896			Home About Carole Lombard Carole M. Sampeck (See Warning, Below) About Fort Wayne (click on For Visitors) About the Innkeepers
			The dining porch has a grand view of the St. Mary's River and the Carole Lombard Memorial Bridge. The house sits on a high point, above the river and was used by Elizabeth Knight (Bess) Peters (Carole's mother) during the flood of 1913 to house refugees and coordinate the rescue efforts. It's believed that Bess's fortitude during the flood had a lasting impression on her daughter.
The old parlor is now a guest room with two single beds. One can only imagine the people who were entertained in the parlor. The Peters, as well as the Knights were well to do families in Fort Wayne, at the turn of the century. Carole's Grandfather, John Peters, was born in Fort Wayne in 1841 and he worked as a cabinet maker until he was twenty-one. He then started his own business, The Peters Box Company. He sold fine woods and veneers, furniture and other wooden items. He sold the business and started the John C. Peters lumber Company, which sold fine oak. Eventually he and others started the Horton Washing Machine Company. Soon, half the washing machines in the world came from Horton. This house and the one next door were built by John Peters, and have much oak trim throughout.
			The stairway leads to the bedrooms on the second floor. Tomboy, Jane Alice Peters (Carole's birth name) was said to often race her brothers to the top of the stairs. She was a very competitive girl and strove to be best at everything she did. Historic references to her room "at the top of the stairs" gave the name Jane Alice Peters' room to the room at the top of the stairs.
The Jane Alice Peters room: the room at the top of the stairs. Photographs include her Kindergarten class (she attended nearby Washington School
			The Carole Lombard Room. Pictures of Carole in many dresses. She was known as a "clotheshorse" before she became a professional actress. (Her first movie was A Perfect Crime, made when she was 12 or 13, but she had no training or experience at that time other than neighborhood and school plays).
The Clark Gable room. Clark Gable, to the best of my knowledge, has never been in this house; but the house is decorated in the 1930's and 40's style in tribute to her fame as an actress and The Carole Lombard Clark Gable marriage was the marriage of the day. The view of the St. Mary's River from this room is stunning.
		This plaque on the front of the house says:
		Carole Lombard In this house on October 6, 1908 was born Jane Alice Peters Daughter of Frederick C. and Elizabeth Knight Peters. She took the professional name of Carole Lombard and became one of the Most important figures in the motion picture industry Erected by the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana under the direction of Mayor Harry W. Baals, January 1, 1938 on the occasion of her appearance in David O. Selznick's Technicolor production "Nothing Sacred"