For letters to his congregation, the Rev. Allan Campbell uses only pen and ink -- no ballpoint. Ignoring arthritis, he dips nib into blue, black or purple ink and writes page after page of correspondence to members of the First Baptist Church of Glen Campbell, about 20 miles from Indiana, Pa.

Why?

"Because I'm surrounded by a world I don't like -- e-mail and computers and faxes. I think the human touch is missing. My whole house is about this human touch."

	Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette photos Dr. Dorothy M. Campbell and her husband, the Rev. Allan Campbell, on the patio of their 1905 Tudor-style house in Indiana, Pa. On the left are some of the spike plants he has overwintered indoors. Click photo for larger image.

The Rev. Campbell's house -- a Tudor-style mansion made in England and assembled in Indiana in 1906 -- is as out of place in the Microsoft/Macintosh age as an inkpot in a jet printer. But it perfectly fits this amiable minister and his wife, Dorothy, a retired education professor at California University of Pennsylvania.

With their three children grown, its 9,700 square feet spread over four levels can seem like an endless maze of English walnut woodwork, antique furniture and heirloom artwork and bric-a-brac.

Not to the Rev. Campbell. As if looking in a mirror, he sees only a wonderfully eccentric throwback to another age, filled to bursting with storied objects, including one of the region's largest personal china collections, and 250 years of family history from Espys, Philips, Kings, Campbells, Maits and Millers (the whiskey rebels).

When a visitor notices a purple pennant from Queen Elizabeth's coronation in a cabinet filled with royal memorabilia, its owner says:

"I'm very fond of the queen. What am I doing with it? What am I going to do with anything?"

The dining room contains only a bit of thousands of pieces of china. Click photo for larger image.

Somehow, it all finds its place, just as attorney James W. Mack found his in Surrey, England, more than a century ago. Mr. Mack asked that a replica of the English house be made and shipped to Indiana, Pa. Of course it stuck out, a Tudor among Victorians, 5 1/2 bathrooms in a town where you were lucky to have one.

The seven-bedroom house cost $25,800 back then. Today, the Rev. Campbell won't venture to say what it's worth. But his insurance company says it contains $1.6 million worth of walnut in its paneling, bookcases, three-story staircase and nearly 100 doors.

Some of the walnut woodwork had been painted when the Campbells moved in 25 years ago. They left it that way, most noticeably in the living room, where the walls, built-in bookcases and window seat are apple green. He points out some of his favorite details:

Heart-shaped brass escutcheons on the doors that repeat the heart motif in the leaded casement windows, now restored.

An 1840s grandfather clock and a Victorian lamp that has been its companion for 160 years.

	The Tudor-style house's sandstone and stucco walls are 3 feet thick in places. As a boy, actor Jimmy Stewart supposedly road a horse through the front door. Click photo for larger image.

A small oil painting of a St. Bernard that was found with a handwritten note from the Macks' son: "Dad's old dog."

Although the Campbells didn't buy the house from the family, Mrs. Mack still lived nearby, and the Rev. Campbell knew her well. She probably was not the source of the story he's heard about the den, a cozy room with high dark-stained walnut wainscoting and a brick-faced, wood-burning fireplace.

A friend once asked Mr. Mack why such a large house had such a small den.

"So Mabel and her friends can't come in," he replied. "There's room for me, my dog and one good friend."

Among the people Mr. Mack called friends was Alex Stewart, a fellow Princeton University alumnus and father of actor Jimmy Stewart. Little Jimmy, who lived nearby, supposedly rode a horse through the low arched front door of the Macks' house during one of his visits.

The front door is less than 3 feet high on this 1874 model house, built by a lumber company to show off its carpentry skills. The Campbell children used it as a playhouse. Click photo for larger image.

Many of the first-floor ceilings are vaulted, including the 10-foot one in the dining room. The beams are painted white, like the ceiling, so as not to draw attention away from the antique dining table and chairs, a restored crystal chandelier and sconces, and the china, a tiny bit of the thousands of pieces that the Rev. Campbell owns. At least 270 patterns are represented, with as many as 120 place settings in some patterns. He also has a huge collection of wine glasses, many made of crystal.

"We entertain a lot. I just had dinner for 100 in the yard," he tries to explain, then adds: "I know I'm crazy."

He's the only one of three brothers who appreciates and therefore inherits china, crystal and silver, although he also buys some on his own. A friend gave him the dining room chandelier and sconces, which he sent to Italy for restoration, then moved the ones the Macks had left to a second-floor sitting room off the master bedroom. He loves the amber glow given off by the art-deco fixture's shades, which were handblown by Steuben of glass containing 24 percent gold instead of lead.

Conversation pieces in the finished basement include a homemade pistol found in the chimney of a razed Hill District mansion; mid-1800s pulpit chairs from Pine Flats Baptist Church, where he was the last pastor; and the front desk, reception bell and other items from the old Indiana Hotel, which burned in 1960.

Of all of the Rev. Campbell's possessions, the one that requires the most attention is his house. He recently hired church member Roy Bish to replace the front porch's red tile with slate similar to the original. He uncovered and restored Mrs. Mack's waterfall and pool in her Japanese garden. And he's gone to great lengths to save a cascading pink cherry tree she planted in front when the house was built. He won't even cut off a low branch that makes mowing difficult.

"I'm a respecter of things like that," he says.

	More of the Rev. Campbell's china collection is displayed on a plate rail at the top of the English walnut wainscoting in the den. Click photo for larger image.

His respect and love for history shows in his garden's most unusual element, an 1874 clapboard Victorian-style house that is exactly one-sixth the size of the real thing. Made by a local lumber company to show off its house-building skills, it had been damaged in a fire when the Rev. Campbell bought it 25 years ago as a playhouse for his children.

The rest of the garden displays the minister's horticultural skills. Among the flowers in the more than one-acre yard are nasturtium, foxglove, flowering balsam, flowering bamboo, smokebush, Colorado lupine, zinnias, phlox, verbena, portulaca, cosmos, irises, clematis and morning glories. Edible plants include horseradish, tomatoes, rhubarb and blackberries.

But what are those exotic-looking palms mixed in among the containers of geraniums by the in-ground pool?

"It's spike," he says, smiling at my surprise. "I've saved them for a couple years. Aren't they wonderful?"

Who knew a tropical plant (Dracaena spp.) used mostly as a container accent could develop so much character with age? Only a character in his own right, the kind who turns a hotel's front desk into a bar.

"I'm probably the only Baptist minister with a bar," he says, laughing.

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Correction/Clarification: (Published Sept. 11, 2007) This story as originally published Aug. 18, 2007 about a house constructed in England and rebuilt in Indiana, Pa., misidentified its first owner. He was attorney James W. Mack, a cousin of James S. Mack, who became president of G.C. Murphy Co., according to "Indiana County 175th Anniversary History" by Clarence D. Stephenson.