The Matt Brown Farmhouse

The following essay was written by John Bryant, grandson of John Wilson, the contractor who built the house on the former Matt Brown farm:

The farm house on the former Matt Brown farm was built by my great grandfather John Wilson of Hebron who was a local contractor. Our farm, the Bryant Dowd Farm is immediately east of the Brown Farm.

The house was built in the 1890's and had a wrap around porch and a turret window on at least one corner. It was a prairie castle. In the late 1940's, the Brown family sold the farm to a Robert Reed, a realtor from Chicago who also owned a couple of farms in the Valparaiso area. He had extensive holdings in Sunnybrook Distilleries, hence the name Sunnybrook Farm. When Robert Reed took over ownership of the farm, Maurice Busselberg and his wife Inell began farming it. Maurice (his nickname was Biss) grew up just down the road to the west. When Biss and Inell moved into the big farm house the landlord Mr. Reed had the house totally changed,. removing the turret and the wraparound porch, and also removing the original windows and placing within the old frames new smaller ones. The high pitched roof was also replaced by a lower pitched roof, totally destroying the victorian character of the house. The second floor had a complete kitchen at one time and actually housed a second family after the Browns moved on. Many of the trappings of the original victorian style house still exist within the house including a fireplace with victorian decoration and a large staircase. I have a picture of the house as it was built.

One story that I remember hearing about Matt Brown was related by Ray Spindler, a local seed corn salesman. When hybrid seedcorn first became popular after its introduction in the 1930's, Matt Brown required Ray Spindler to carry it upstairs in the house and place it under Matt Brown's bed. He was afraid someone would steal it due to its high price (at the time). The house was never a bed and breakfast nor a hunting lodge. Rodney Johnson purchased the farm from Maurice Busselberg (who bought it from Robert Reed) in the 1990's. Rodney's son Rodney farmed it for a few years, including the strawberry patch south of the highway (Rt. 2). Eventually, Rodney Jr. and his wife moved back to the main operation in Hobart to manage the main truck farming operation so his parents could ease out of the operation. The Johnsons still sell strawberries in season at the farm. Jerry Hayden and his sons now farm the Sunnybrook Farm which totals approximately 920 acres.