 The gardens and grounds were restored by the museum in the 1990s.Together with the restoration of the mansion in 2002, Oldfields is now a rare example of a surviving American Country Place Era estate.The estate was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2003 and has been described as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a unified work of art that combines the arts of landscape design, gardening, architecture, interior design, and decorative arts.. Oldfields was built between 1910 and 1913 by architect Lewis Ketcham Davis for the family of Hugh McKennan Landon, who occupied the home from 1913 until 1932 when Landon sold it to J. K. Lilly, Jr. Lilly, the late Indianapolis businessman, collector, and philanthropist, renovated and expanded the estate throughout the 1930s and 1940s, updating interiors as well as adding a number of new buildings to the grounds.