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1980 — 2026 · the Clement Studebaker mansion
The conversion: The mansion is Architecture's — Clement Studebaker's house, its grounds, its National Register standing — and the haunted lore tested against its documented deaths is told in Haunted Places. What belongs here is the restaurant that occupied it for two generations. Continental Restaurant Systems bought the mansion in 1979 and spent $2 million converting it; Tippecanoe Place the restaurant opened in 1980, in the Tribune's January 2026 account of its closing. Mark McDonnell was brought in as general manager in 1981 and led the house to 1987, by the Chamber's record — the same McDonnell of the next entry. A brewery age followed inside the mansion: Studebaker Brewing opened within it in 2018.
The close, and a count that conflicts in one newspaper: The last owner, Kevin Jakel, had worked in the house twelve years before acquiring it; he closed the restaurant on January 5, 2026. The Tribune's own headlines count the run two ways — "after 45 years" in one, "after nearly 46 years" in another — and both are printed as they stand: a 1980 opening and a January 2026 closing support either rounding, and this section does not settle what the newspaper left unsettled. The mansion's next use is not in the record yet; Today carries the building among its open items.
Sources:
- South Bend Tribune (January 2026) — the 1979 purchase by Continental Restaurant Systems and the $2 million conversion; the 1980 opening; Kevin Jakel's twelve years and ownership; the closing of 5 January 2026; the "45 years" and "nearly 46 years" headline counts.
- South Bend Regional Chamber — Mark McDonnell, general manager 1981–1987.
- Architecture and Haunted Places sections of this history — the mansion itself and the lore tested against its record.