 The house was briefly used as an artists' studio, gallery, and apartments between 1957 and 1964.With funds from Eli Lilly, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana (now Indiana Landmarks) bought the house in 1963, when it was in danger of being destroyed by the construction of Interstate 70.Lilly had once lived on North Delaware Street, about a block away from the Morris–Butler House, with his first wife, Evelyn Fortune Lilly, in the 1920s.