In the late 1890’s, William P. Rogers originally built the house for his bride Belle at the corner of Seventh and Lincoln Streets. William Rogers was a well-known Bloomington lawyer who later became dean of the Indiana University and Cincinnati Law Schools. Subsequent owners included William Graham, the Bloomington businessman who built the Graham Hotel, and William N. Showers, owner of Showers Brothers Furniture factory, at one time the largest furniture manufacturing plant in the United States. Charles and Martha Ziegler bought the house from Florence Fulwider in 1944, and the First Presbyterian Church assumed full ownership in May 1987 at the time of Mr. Ziegler’s death.

When the First Presbyterian Church began to expand its own facilities, developing plans that did not include the preservation of the house, 200 signatures were collected on a petition of protest by the university students living in the apartments into which the house had been partitioned. Bloomington Restorations, Inc. negotiated an agreement between the church and CFC, Inc. in which CFC, Inc. bought the house for the sum of one dollar and a promise to relocate it. And in the spring of 1990, CFC, Inc. moved the building to its present location. The Grant Street Inn was created, primarily to have a use for the house, by joining the original building with the Gilstrap house at the corner of Grant and Seventh. The Inn operated with 14 rooms until 1996, when it was expanded to its current size by converting the two neighboring buildings into ten additional rooms.