Harbor Life Ministries

Harbor House Maternity Home’s original location in Celina is now for sale.

Built in the 1920s as a home for Dr. John Gibbons Sr., the founder of Gibbons Hospital in Celina, the home is actually connected to the hospital building by an attached garage, which, up until the closing of the hospital in 1980, was where the ambulance parked. From inside the garage you can either head east into the house or west into the hospital.

Entering the house from the garage brings you first into a small laundry room and then into the back hallway which links the kitchen/dining room with a back entrance and bedroom hallway. There’s a full bath and half bath on the first floor, three bedrooms, an office (in the front of the house directly off of the master bedroom), a room that served the maternity home as a lobby/foyer (the front door is part of the room), and a side door (that exits into the Fayette Street front drive) with a landing and stairs to the basement.

A historically unique feature of the house is found on the second floor, where at one time, during the baby boom of the 50s and 60s, you could find the delivery room, baby nursery, and maternity ward. With the large Catholic population in Mercer County, during the post-war late-1940s Gibbons Hospital had the highest birth rate per total patient count of all hospitals in the United States.

When the home was originally constructed the second story was a normal second story, but with the baby boom, Dr. Gibbons decided to rebuild his home’s second floor and connect it over the garage to the second floor of the hospital. Due to elevation differences between the house and the hospital, the connecting hallway had to be sloped to accommodate moving gurneys and carts easily between the two. Dr. Gibbons also extended the second floor to the east beyond his home, and built a medical office under it, which was dubbed the Gibbons Medical Center. Even though they shared a common floor/ceiling, the hospital portion of the remodeling had completely separate HVAC/electric/plumbing, so that the medical office could be leased or even sold to a third party.

Harbor House Maternity Home bought the old hospital building, the home and the second floor extension from Dr. Gibbons’ son, Dr. John Gibbons Jr., in 1990 on a land contract. In 2002 the adjoining-but-separate medical offices to the east, along with a free-standing carriage house turned three-bay garage behind the offices, were also purchased. Three tenants came with the property and provided income to help pay for taxes and maintenance.

One of the first upgrades to the property after the 2002 purchase was to replace the flat roof over the eastern corner office with a DuraLast(TM) 30-year roof, a $12,000 investment. Other upgrades were made over the past few years such as installing new furnaces.