Wheeler–Stallard House
Encyclopedia
The Wheeler–Stallard House is located on West Bleeker Street in Aspen
, Colorado, United States. It is an 1880s brick structure built in the Queen Anne architectural style
, and renovated twice in the 20th century. In 1975 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
It was built by Jerome Wheeler, an early investor in Aspen's silver mines
during its boomtown
years. He and two wealthy tenants rarely spent much time in the house before the Colorado Silver Boom
ended in 1893. After a decade of vacancy, it became the home of the Stallard family for much of the early 20th century, the "quiet years" when Aspen's economy was depressed and its remaining residents struggled to make a living.
After World War II it was bought by Walter Paepcke
, who like Wheeler came to visit Aspen and invested heavily in its development, leading to the city becoming a cultural center and upscale ski resort. He never lived there himself, and it eventually became the residence of Alvin C. Eurich
during his tenure as Aspen Institute
president. Since the late 1960s it has been the home of the Aspen Historical Society, which operates it partially as a historic house museum.
, the only through road to and from the city, is a block to the south. One block further south the level terrain gives way to the slopes of Aspen Mountain
There is a detached garage and parking lot in the rear.
The building itself is a three-story structure of brick on a stone foundation
laid in common bond with wooden trim. The cross-gabled roof has a shed-roofed dormer window on the south face; the west gable ends in a jerkin roof and the other three have projecting central sections. Three tall fluted
brick chimneys rise from the sides. The first story of the south (front) elevation has a projecting flat-roofed bay window
on the west; a pent-roofed balustraded porch begins on the east and wraps around that entire elevation.
All windows on the lower two stories are double-hung sash
with an unusual twelve-over-one pattern. The upper two panes of a six-over-one are further divided by muntins into four smaller panes each. They are set underneath splayed brick arched lintels. On the gables they are double windows; except for the south gable which has triple windows on both stories.
The roofline of the projecting bay on the south has a cornice
topped with corbel
ed brickwork. The gables likewise are set off from the lower stories by a projecting flared roof supported by elaborate wooden brackets
. The gable roofline is lined with paneled bargeboard
s. Recessed within are two casement window
s with diamond patterns in a scalloped face. Similar windows are within the dormer as well.
Paneled double wooden doors open into a small lobby, with a closet on the side and stairs leading up in the southeast corner. The original summer kitchen is to the rear. To the west is the living room, with the dining room and kitchen behind it. All the rooms on the second story were originally bedrooms. The attic has been divided into rooms as well. They are furnished in a manner that as close as possible replicates how they might have originally been furnished around 1890.
's ownership in the years after World War II; and its present ownership by the historical society.
department store chain, first visited Aspen in 1883. The rapidly growing community had not existed a decade earlier, and had only incorporated
as a city four years earlier. The silver miners who were its earliest settlers looked to someone like Wheeler as the kind of Eastern
investor who could make it practical to extract the extensive silver deposits in the surrounding mountains—at the time, it was necessary to haul any significant amounts of ore over the Continental Divide
at Independence Pass
to Leadville
, where the nearest smelter
was, via mule train
.
Wheeler invested heavily in building a smelter in Aspen, and bringing a railroad connection to the city, while spending the summers in Manitou Springs
. He built two of downtown Aspen's main landmarks, the Wheeler Opera House
and Hotel Jerome
. It appears that he began planning to build a permanent residence in the city as early as 1886, when he bought the tracts of land where the house now stands.
It is unclear what year the house was built, or who the architect was. The year of construction most often claimed is 1888. It is unlikely to have been built earlier, since Wheeler would have not likely built anything before he bought the rights to build over a city-owned easement
for an alley across the middle of the block
in 1887 (at the time it was built, it was the only house in Aspen with an entire block to itself. There is no record of the house existing before 1890, when Wheeler made his first property tax
payment on it and two extant photographs were taken, so it is entirely possible that 1889 was the true year of construction.
Denver
-based architects Frederick A. Hale and William Quayle have both been suggested as the architect. Both built major buildings in the city—Hale the Aspen Community Church
and the Aspen and Cowenhoven blocks downtown, and Quayle the Pitkin County Courthouse
respectively—during the time period. An undated history of the house in the historical society's collection attributes the building to Hale; this is the only known attribution of the house to any architect. No newspaper accounts or other records from the late 1880s suggest Quayle and Wheeler had any contact during the courthouse construction, or that Hale was even in Aspen at that time.
Around this time Wheeler retired from Macy's, possibly as a result of a power struggle with majority partner Charles Webster, allowing him to devote his full attention to his interests in the Colorado mountains. Since Aspen was conveniently located to most of them, he had intended for the new house there to become the family's permanent home. Local legend holds that Harriet Wheeler never visited Aspen, either because of her health or a supposed dislike for the mountains. However, newspaper accounts state that the Wheelers, including Harriet, did make several short visits to Aspen in 1888–89, during which they may well have spent their nights at the house if it was complete.
The Wheelers would instead take up full-time residence in Windermere, another mansion they were building in Manitou Springs. Jerome Wheeler instead rented it in 1889 to James Henry Devereux, a former manager of his Aspen mining company who had since become an officer of the local electric utility, among his own other business interests around the state. He and his family lived in the house intermittently and then moved to their own permanent Aspen home in 1890.
They were replaced very soon by Henry Woodward, who had briefly managed the opera house for Wheeler. By 1890 he had become Wheeler's general agent for Colorado, managing all his employer's interests in the state. Woodward eventually became vice president of Wheeler's Aspen bank as well, and he and his wife were prominent in the city's social life, hosting parties at the house. They, like the Wheelers and Devereuxs, often took extended visits away from it as well.
One of those extended vacations led to the Woodwards' departure from the house. In 1892 they went to Cuba
, ostensibly for the warmer climate, and did not return for at least four months. Woodward may also have been seeking to avoid criminal prosecution for possible illegal acts on Wheeler's behalf during litigation between his employer and a former partner. After Woodward's return, he remained Wheeler's agent but moved into a new house on West Hallam Street.
Instead of finding a new tenant, Wheeler eventually sold the property to his mother-in-law. He eventually liquidated
most of his Aspen interests over the course of 1892, both to pay off debts and legal judgements against him, and because he may have been concerned by drops in the price of silver. He did not liquidate enough to protect himself from the severe setbacks he incurred the following year, when the Panic of 1893
struck and, as a result, Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
which had kept the Colorado mines in business. Wheeler's mining company laid off all its employees, and his banks closed for two years. He rarely visited Aspen after that, and spent most of his time in Windermere, the Manitou Springs house, until his death in 1918.
, around 500 lived in a city which had once been home to over 10,000.
Wheeler's mother-in-law in turn sold the house to a fellow New Yorker
, Christopher Bell, for $5,000 ($ in modern dollars), along with the Wheeler Opera House. He was a frequent business partner and lender to Wheeler in those years, and buying some of his now-toxic asset
s at prices well above their minimal market value may have been a way to help the Wheeler family out financially without loaning them more money. Bell does not appear to have ever visited Aspen before his death in 1902.
His will
bequeathed the Aspen properties to his youngest son Dennistoun. In 1905 he allowed Edgar Stallard, a local real estate agent who had become manager of the opera house the year before, to move into the house in return for services rendered, according to his descendants. One of them recalled in an interview years later that the house was severely neglected, as were many buildings from Aspen's boom years, when they moved in, further suggesting that no one had lived there since the Woodwards.
The Stallards became the first true residents of the house, in the process changing how it was used. Unlike the Wheelers, Devereuxs or Woodwards, they could not afford servants, so the rooms set aside for them instead became the bedrooms for their children and, after 1908, two nieces of Mary Ella Stallard they took in after her sister died. Edgar, who had done business in Aspen since 1889, had been relatively prosperous since the crash, managing and renting properties for newly absentee owners who had left town, but even though he was agent for the Hotel Jerome as well, his income was not enough to support the family. Mary Ella supplemented it with subsistence farming
, growing vegetables on a rear garden and ranching a plot of land outside of town to feed the family's animals, chores in which she was assisted by the Stallard sons when they grew old enough. Surplus milk and eggs were sold to other Aspenites. She also maintained a small photographic studio in the house, and refused to charge for the pictures she took of neighbors. The house, once a showplace for affluence, became a workplace as much as a residence.
One major difficulty was the impracticality of heating a house designed with wealthy and frequently absent occupants in mind through the severe winters of a mountain town almost 8000 feet (2,438.4 m) in elevation. The family added a coal shed, a feature no previous occupant had needed, on the north (rear) elevation. Franklin stove
s replaced the fireplaces, now boarded at the flue
to prevent heat loss. Cottonwoods planted around the block were gradually felled for firewood
.
In 1908 ownership defaulted to the county
as a result of the Bells' failure to pay taxes on it. Two years later, the county put it up for sale at auction
. In a depressed market with many vacant properties, it did not sell until a rancher bought it for $150 ($ in modern dollars). He then sold it to Mary Ella Stallard at cost. For the first time since 1888 the house was owner-occupied.
Not long after the Stallards became homeowners, their lives were again beset by adversity. In 1919 the last of the major silver mines around Aspen closed down. Edgar closed his real estate business and took a job as a deputy assessor for the county at much lower pay. That summer, the Stallards' youngest son, Albert, died at the age of 12 of diphtheria
. His mother was consumed by grief, and according to relatives never quite got over it. She nevertheless took in three of her grandnieces, who had lost their own mother to the 1918 flu pandemic and were not getting along with their stepmother, in 1921.
The three girls helped around the house as much as their mother and aunts had. This became especially necessary when Edgar Stallard died of chronic lung disease in 1925. She inherited some property and jewelry from him, but saved them for future use, and continued to subsist until the grandnieces had grown up and moved out by the late 1930s. To save money on heating, she closed off the upper floors, used the dining room as her bedroom and the small winter kitchen as the only kitchen.
By 1945 she had realized the house was too big for her, and moved to a smaller house on Main Street. That year she sold the house to William Tagert, who had long owned a feed store in the city. He immediately sold it to a visiting businessman from Chicago named Walter Paepcke
.
) who visited Aspen while vacationing elsewhere in Colorado. He and his wife Elizabeth, both avid supporters of the arts, had been looking for an American location for a classical music
festival similar to the Salzburg Festival
in Austria. Aspen's mountain setting was ideal, but the city's many derelict buildings were a problem. The couple was convinced that, if restored
their Victorian
charm would make Aspen a place visitors would want to return to.
They bought 18 properties around the city, including the house, and commissioned Bauhaus
architect Herbert Bayer
to help renovate them. Paepcke also made the acquaintance of Fritz Pferdl and several other veterans of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division who had begun developing downhill ski
trails on Aspen Mountain
before the war. He formed the Aspen Skiing Company
with them, and in 1947 they built and opened Ski Lift No. 1
, then the longest ski lift
in the world,. an event considered to have ended the quiet years and begun the development of Aspen into the upscale resort town it is today.
Skiing and the Aspen Music Festival
, begun to commemorate the bicentennial of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
in 1949, began attracting visitors to the city. The Hotel Jerome
, then the only one in the city, could not always accomomdate them, and the Paepckes used the large houses in the West End when they had overflow. Elizabeth Paepcke, herself trained as a designer and architect, not only oversaw the renovation of the Wheeler–Stallard House but did some of the work herself, including ripping out some of the original wall plaster and replacing it with drywall
, partitioning and finishing the attic and replacing some of the fireplace mantel
s. The interior layout may have been altered during this time, possibly with the closure of the entrance to the servants' stairs in the rear and the entry to the backroom from the foyer and the addition of another bathroom on the first floor.
By 1952 the house was regularly housing visiting skiers, who slept in all the bedrooms save those on the attic under the gables. They had free run of the house, but rarely used its kitchens, instead going out to eat at the Jerome or Red Onion
, the only restaurant in Aspen to have stayed open from the boom years. Maids from the hotel cleaned it and made the beds while the guests were on the slopes. Among them were Dan Holly, inventor of the first metallic ski.
Within four years, other lodging had opened in the city and the guesthouses were less necessary. By 1956 the Wheeler–Stallard, like the other West End houses owned by the Paepckes, were instead used as employee housing. Henri Cashid, chef at the Jerome, lived there with his wife starting that year. The upstairs bedrooms were also used to house the hotel's waitresses. The hotel installed a communal phone in the foyer
there so the waitresses could better communicate with their superiors about their work schedules.
Aspen benefited from other initiatives of the Paepckes during this period. The Aspen Institute
, a product of the Goethe bicentennial, began to focus more on larger global issues. Beginning in 1951, its annual Executive Seminar had drawn some of the nation's top executives to the city. In 1963, two years after Walter Paepcke died, the house became the home of Alvin Eurich
, the Institute's first president, as an employment benefit.
As part of that process, Elizabeth Paepcke oversaw another renovation of the house, primarily focused on its structural system
. The basement, she told an interviewer later, had severe deficiencies. "You could see daylight four ways through the stone," she said. "[C]an you imagine what happened in winter? Everything froze up, all the pipes and everything. They were always renewing the pipes and never repairing the basement."
Other changes made during this period including removing the section of porch that wrapped around the north elevation, supposedly requested by Eurich and his wife, and the current decoration on the first floor. The Institute reimbursed her for not only the $38,000 ($ in modern dollars) the effort cost her but the Paepckes' original expenditure in purchasing the property. In return it received the right to use the property as a residence for its president, although it was still owned by Walter Paepcke's life insurance trust
.
Eurich, his wife Nell and their children (who both attended boarding school
s and were rarely in Aspen) took up residence in the house in 1964. It became their primary home, and Nell Eurich converted the attic space into a study. In 1966, they began hosting the opening cocktail parties
of the institute's summer programs at their home, to give participants an experience of Aspen beyond the Meadows complex it occupies. The following year, Eurich resigned as president to become a trustee
of the institute and devote more energy to fundraising. His wife became dean
of Vassar College
, and the couple moved to their New York apartment.
They were the last real residents of the house. William Stevenson
, who served as interim president of the institute for two years, never lived there. His successor, Joseph Slater, moved the institute's headquarters to New York in 1968, making the house unnecessary as a residence for the institute's president.
and the Wheeler Opera House
, with no permanent home. It quickly leased the house from the institute and opened it as a museum in 1969. Within a few months, it had raised the money to buy the house for $140,000 ($ in modern dollars) and by the end of the year it owned the property.
By the 1970s Aspen had become a popular getaway for affluent celebrities and business executives. The society was able to raise considerable money from the community. In 1976 it built the "carriage house" to serve as an archive
for its collections, to the north, with a driveway on Hallam Street. This was the last major change to the property, and the only outbuilding it has ever had.
In 2000 the society began a third set of renovations to make the house a better museum space. They were finished a year later. Since the society expected that at some future point it would use the space as a historic house museum, all the interior furnishings were retained. Outside, the picket fence
was removed and the gardens redesigned to create a more open public space for the weddings and other events the society rents its grounds for. After the renovations, it opened its "Spirit of Aspen" exhibit. It closed in 2006 but can still be viewed online.
Aspen, Colorado
The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...
, Colorado, United States. It is an 1880s brick structure built in the Queen Anne architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
, and renovated twice in the 20th century. In 1975 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
It was built by Jerome Wheeler, an early investor in Aspen's silver mines
Silver mining
Silver mining refers to the resource extraction of the precious metal element silver by mining.-History:Silver has been known since ancient times. It is mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated...
during its boomtown
Boomtown
A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...
years. He and two wealthy tenants rarely spent much time in the house before the Colorado Silver Boom
Colorado Silver Boom
The Colorado Silver Boom was a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U.S. state of Colorado in the late 19th century. The boom started in 1879 with the discovery of silver at Leadville...
ended in 1893. After a decade of vacancy, it became the home of the Stallard family for much of the early 20th century, the "quiet years" when Aspen's economy was depressed and its remaining residents struggled to make a living.
After World War II it was bought by Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the middle-20th century.-Biography:A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Skiing Company in the early 1950s, both...
, who like Wheeler came to visit Aspen and invested heavily in its development, leading to the city becoming a cultural center and upscale ski resort. He never lived there himself, and it eventually became the residence of Alvin C. Eurich
Alvin C. Eurich
Alvin Christian Eurich was a 20th Century American educator who is most notable for having served as the first President of the State University of New York from 1949–1951....
during his tenure as Aspen Institute
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...
president. Since the late 1960s it has been the home of the Aspen Historical Society, which operates it partially as a historic house museum.
Buildings and grounds
The house and its lot take up most of the north side of the block of West Bleeker between North Fifth, North Sixth and West Hallam streets in Aspen's residential West End. Main Street, part of State Highway 82Colorado State Highway 82
State Highway 82 is an 85.29 mile long state highway in the U.S. state of Colorado.-Route description:SH 82 provides the principal transportation artery of the Roaring Fork Valley on the Colorado Western Slope, running from Interstate 70 at Glenwood Springs southeast past Carbondale, Basalt...
, the only through road to and from the city, is a block to the south. One block further south the level terrain gives way to the slopes of Aspen Mountain
Aspen Mountain (Colorado)
Aspen Mountain is a mountain in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the United States. One of the foothills of the Elk Mountains, it is located just south of the town of Aspen, which is situated at the foot of the mountain at the southeast end of the valley of the Roaring Fork River in Pitkin County...
There is a detached garage and parking lot in the rear.
The building itself is a three-story structure of brick on a stone foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
laid in common bond with wooden trim. The cross-gabled roof has a shed-roofed dormer window on the south face; the west gable ends in a jerkin roof and the other three have projecting central sections. Three tall fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
brick chimneys rise from the sides. The first story of the south (front) elevation has a projecting flat-roofed bay window
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...
on the west; a pent-roofed balustraded porch begins on the east and wraps around that entire elevation.
All windows on the lower two stories are double-hung sash
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
with an unusual twelve-over-one pattern. The upper two panes of a six-over-one are further divided by muntins into four smaller panes each. They are set underneath splayed brick arched lintels. On the gables they are double windows; except for the south gable which has triple windows on both stories.
The roofline of the projecting bay on the south has a cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
topped with corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
ed brickwork. The gables likewise are set off from the lower stories by a projecting flared roof supported by elaborate wooden brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
. The gable roofline is lined with paneled bargeboard
Bargeboard
Bargeboard is a board fastened to the projecting gables of a roof to give them strength and to mask, hide and protect the otherwise exposed end of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof to which they were attached...
s. Recessed within are two casement window
Casement window
A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a...
s with diamond patterns in a scalloped face. Similar windows are within the dormer as well.
Paneled double wooden doors open into a small lobby, with a closet on the side and stairs leading up in the southeast corner. The original summer kitchen is to the rear. To the west is the living room, with the dining room and kitchen behind it. All the rooms on the second story were originally bedrooms. The attic has been divided into rooms as well. They are furnished in a manner that as close as possible replicates how they might have originally been furnished around 1890.
History
The house's history has roughly four periods: its early years after Wheeler built it, during which it was never occupied by its residents for a long period and later fell vacant when the city's economy faltered; the Stallard family's occupancy and later ownership in the first half of the 20th century, Aspen's "quiet years"; Walter PaepckeWalter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the middle-20th century.-Biography:A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Skiing Company in the early 1950s, both...
's ownership in the years after World War II; and its present ownership by the historical society.
1889–92: Construction and Wheeler years
Jerome B. Wheeler, then the minority partner in the Macy'sMacy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
department store chain, first visited Aspen in 1883. The rapidly growing community had not existed a decade earlier, and had only incorporated
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
as a city four years earlier. The silver miners who were its earliest settlers looked to someone like Wheeler as the kind of Eastern
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
investor who could make it practical to extract the extensive silver deposits in the surrounding mountains—at the time, it was necessary to haul any significant amounts of ore over the Continental Divide
Continental Divide
The Continental Divide of the Americas, or merely the Continental Gulf of Division or Great Divide, is the name given to the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain...
at Independence Pass
Independence Pass (Colorado)
Independence Pass, elevation , is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States.The pass crosses the ridge of the Sawatch Range between Aspen and Leadville, on the border between Pitkin and Lake counties, and is within the White River National Forest...
to Leadville
Leadville, Colorado
Leadville is a Statutory City that is the county seat of, and the only municipality in, Lake County, Colorado, United States. Situated at an elevation of , Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States...
, where the nearest smelter
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
was, via mule train
Mule train
Mule train can refer to:*A connected line of mules*Mule Train, 1949 popular song written by Johnny Lange, Hy Heath, Doc Tommy Scott and Fred Glickman...
.
Wheeler invested heavily in building a smelter in Aspen, and bringing a railroad connection to the city, while spending the summers in Manitou Springs
Manitou Springs, Colorado
The city of Manitou Springs is a Home Rule Municipality located in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The population was 4,980 at the 2000 census.Students are served by Manitou Springs School District 14 and Manitou Springs High School....
. He built two of downtown Aspen's main landmarks, the Wheeler Opera House
Wheeler Opera House
The Wheeler Opera House is located at the corner of East Hyman Avenue and South Mill Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a stone building erected during the 1890s, from a design by Willoughby J. Edbrooke...
and Hotel Jerome
Hotel Jerome
The Hotel Jerome is located on East Main Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a brick structure built in the 1880s that is often described as one of the city's major landmarks, its "crown jewel". In 1986 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places...
. It appears that he began planning to build a permanent residence in the city as early as 1886, when he bought the tracts of land where the house now stands.
It is unclear what year the house was built, or who the architect was. The year of construction most often claimed is 1888. It is unlikely to have been built earlier, since Wheeler would have not likely built anything before he bought the rights to build over a city-owned easement
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...
for an alley across the middle of the block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
in 1887 (at the time it was built, it was the only house in Aspen with an entire block to itself. There is no record of the house existing before 1890, when Wheeler made his first property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
payment on it and two extant photographs were taken, so it is entirely possible that 1889 was the true year of construction.
Denver
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
-based architects Frederick A. Hale and William Quayle have both been suggested as the architect. Both built major buildings in the city—Hale the Aspen Community Church
Aspen Community Church
Aspen Community Church is located at the intersection of East Bleeker and North Aspen streets in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a stone building erected in the late 19th century...
and the Aspen and Cowenhoven blocks downtown, and Quayle the Pitkin County Courthouse
Pitkin County Courthouse
The Pitkin County Courthouse is located on East Main Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a large brick building erected in the late 19th century that serves as offices not just of Pitkin County's courts but its other governmental agencies, and the Aspen police...
respectively—during the time period. An undated history of the house in the historical society's collection attributes the building to Hale; this is the only known attribution of the house to any architect. No newspaper accounts or other records from the late 1880s suggest Quayle and Wheeler had any contact during the courthouse construction, or that Hale was even in Aspen at that time.
Around this time Wheeler retired from Macy's, possibly as a result of a power struggle with majority partner Charles Webster, allowing him to devote his full attention to his interests in the Colorado mountains. Since Aspen was conveniently located to most of them, he had intended for the new house there to become the family's permanent home. Local legend holds that Harriet Wheeler never visited Aspen, either because of her health or a supposed dislike for the mountains. However, newspaper accounts state that the Wheelers, including Harriet, did make several short visits to Aspen in 1888–89, during which they may well have spent their nights at the house if it was complete.
The Wheelers would instead take up full-time residence in Windermere, another mansion they were building in Manitou Springs. Jerome Wheeler instead rented it in 1889 to James Henry Devereux, a former manager of his Aspen mining company who had since become an officer of the local electric utility, among his own other business interests around the state. He and his family lived in the house intermittently and then moved to their own permanent Aspen home in 1890.
They were replaced very soon by Henry Woodward, who had briefly managed the opera house for Wheeler. By 1890 he had become Wheeler's general agent for Colorado, managing all his employer's interests in the state. Woodward eventually became vice president of Wheeler's Aspen bank as well, and he and his wife were prominent in the city's social life, hosting parties at the house. They, like the Wheelers and Devereuxs, often took extended visits away from it as well.
One of those extended vacations led to the Woodwards' departure from the house. In 1892 they went to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, ostensibly for the warmer climate, and did not return for at least four months. Woodward may also have been seeking to avoid criminal prosecution for possible illegal acts on Wheeler's behalf during litigation between his employer and a former partner. After Woodward's return, he remained Wheeler's agent but moved into a new house on West Hallam Street.
Instead of finding a new tenant, Wheeler eventually sold the property to his mother-in-law. He eventually liquidated
Liquidation
In law, liquidation is the process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed. Liquidation is also sometimes referred to as winding-up or dissolution, although dissolution technically refers to the last stage of liquidation...
most of his Aspen interests over the course of 1892, both to pay off debts and legal judgements against him, and because he may have been concerned by drops in the price of silver. He did not liquidate enough to protect himself from the severe setbacks he incurred the following year, when the Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
struck and, as a result, Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was enacted on July 14, 1890 as a United States federal law. It was named after its author, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee...
which had kept the Colorado mines in business. Wheeler's mining company laid off all its employees, and his banks closed for two years. He rarely visited Aspen after that, and spent most of his time in Windermere, the Manitou Springs house, until his death in 1918.
1893–1945: Stallards and quiet years
There is no record of anyone living in the house in the years immediately following the crash. This was the beginning of a half-century of Aspen's history referred to as "the quiet years", during which the collapse of the mining industry and ensuing economic contraction led to a steady population decline. At its nadir, in 1930United States Census, 1930
The Fifteenth United States Census, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from April 1, 1930, determined the resident population of the United States to be 122,775,046, an increase of 13.7 percent over the 106,021,537 persons enumerated during the 1920 Census.-Census questions:The 1930 Census...
, around 500 lived in a city which had once been home to over 10,000.
Wheeler's mother-in-law in turn sold the house to a fellow New Yorker
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Christopher Bell, for $5,000 ($ in modern dollars), along with the Wheeler Opera House. He was a frequent business partner and lender to Wheeler in those years, and buying some of his now-toxic asset
Toxic asset
Toxic asset is a popular term for certain financial assets whose value has fallen significantly and for which there is no longer a functioning market, so that such assets cannot be sold at a price satisfactory to the holder...
s at prices well above their minimal market value may have been a way to help the Wheeler family out financially without loaning them more money. Bell does not appear to have ever visited Aspen before his death in 1902.
His will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
bequeathed the Aspen properties to his youngest son Dennistoun. In 1905 he allowed Edgar Stallard, a local real estate agent who had become manager of the opera house the year before, to move into the house in return for services rendered, according to his descendants. One of them recalled in an interview years later that the house was severely neglected, as were many buildings from Aspen's boom years, when they moved in, further suggesting that no one had lived there since the Woodwards.
The Stallards became the first true residents of the house, in the process changing how it was used. Unlike the Wheelers, Devereuxs or Woodwards, they could not afford servants, so the rooms set aside for them instead became the bedrooms for their children and, after 1908, two nieces of Mary Ella Stallard they took in after her sister died. Edgar, who had done business in Aspen since 1889, had been relatively prosperous since the crash, managing and renting properties for newly absentee owners who had left town, but even though he was agent for the Hotel Jerome as well, his income was not enough to support the family. Mary Ella supplemented it with subsistence farming
Subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...
, growing vegetables on a rear garden and ranching a plot of land outside of town to feed the family's animals, chores in which she was assisted by the Stallard sons when they grew old enough. Surplus milk and eggs were sold to other Aspenites. She also maintained a small photographic studio in the house, and refused to charge for the pictures she took of neighbors. The house, once a showplace for affluence, became a workplace as much as a residence.
One major difficulty was the impracticality of heating a house designed with wealthy and frequently absent occupants in mind through the severe winters of a mountain town almost 8000 feet (2,438.4 m) in elevation. The family added a coal shed, a feature no previous occupant had needed, on the north (rear) elevation. Franklin stove
Franklin stove
The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace named after its inventor, Benjamin Franklin. It was invented in 1741.L.W. Labaree, W. Bell, W.B. Willcox, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , vol. 2, page 419...
s replaced the fireplaces, now boarded at the flue
Flue
A flue is a duct, pipe, or chimney for conveying exhaust gases from a fireplace, furnace, water heater, boiler, or generator to the outdoors. In the United States, they are also known as vents and for boilers as breeching for water heaters and modern furnaces...
to prevent heat loss. Cottonwoods planted around the block were gradually felled for firewood
Firewood
Firewood is any wood-like material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form....
.
In 1908 ownership defaulted to the county
Pitkin County, Colorado
Pitkin County is one of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county is named in honor of the late Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin. The county population was 14,872 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Aspen...
as a result of the Bells' failure to pay taxes on it. Two years later, the county put it up for sale at auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
. In a depressed market with many vacant properties, it did not sell until a rancher bought it for $150 ($ in modern dollars). He then sold it to Mary Ella Stallard at cost. For the first time since 1888 the house was owner-occupied.
Not long after the Stallards became homeowners, their lives were again beset by adversity. In 1919 the last of the major silver mines around Aspen closed down. Edgar closed his real estate business and took a job as a deputy assessor for the county at much lower pay. That summer, the Stallards' youngest son, Albert, died at the age of 12 of diphtheria
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
. His mother was consumed by grief, and according to relatives never quite got over it. She nevertheless took in three of her grandnieces, who had lost their own mother to the 1918 flu pandemic and were not getting along with their stepmother, in 1921.
The three girls helped around the house as much as their mother and aunts had. This became especially necessary when Edgar Stallard died of chronic lung disease in 1925. She inherited some property and jewelry from him, but saved them for future use, and continued to subsist until the grandnieces had grown up and moved out by the late 1930s. To save money on heating, she closed off the upper floors, used the dining room as her bedroom and the small winter kitchen as the only kitchen.
By 1945 she had realized the house was too big for her, and moved to a smaller house on Main Street. That year she sold the house to William Tagert, who had long owned a feed store in the city. He immediately sold it to a visiting businessman from Chicago named Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the middle-20th century.-Biography:A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Skiing Company in the early 1950s, both...
.
1945–69: Paepcke years
Like Jerome Wheeler, Paepcke was a wealthy and successful head of a major corporation (Container Corporation of AmericaContainer Corporation of America
Container Corporation of America was founded in 1926 and manufactures corrugated boxes. In 1968 CCA merged with Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc., in a move that was largely intended to thwart takeover bids against either company. MARCOR maintained separate management for the operations of each...
) who visited Aspen while vacationing elsewhere in Colorado. He and his wife Elizabeth, both avid supporters of the arts, had been looking for an American location for a classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
festival similar to the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
in Austria. Aspen's mountain setting was ideal, but the city's many derelict buildings were a problem. The couple was convinced that, if restored
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
their Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
charm would make Aspen a place visitors would want to return to.
They bought 18 properties around the city, including the house, and commissioned Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
architect Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer was an Austrian American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental & interior designer, and architect, who was widely recognized as the last living member of the Bauhaus and was instrumental in the development of the Atlantic Richfield Company's...
to help renovate them. Paepcke also made the acquaintance of Fritz Pferdl and several other veterans of the U.S. Army's Tenth Mountain Division who had begun developing downhill ski
Alpine skiing
Alpine skiing is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with skiing using free-heel bindings: Ski mountaineering and nordic skiing – such as cross-country; ski jumping; and Telemark. In competitive alpine skiing races four...
trails on Aspen Mountain
Aspen Mountain (Colorado)
Aspen Mountain is a mountain in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the United States. One of the foothills of the Elk Mountains, it is located just south of the town of Aspen, which is situated at the foot of the mountain at the southeast end of the valley of the Roaring Fork River in Pitkin County...
before the war. He formed the Aspen Skiing Company
Aspen Skiing Company
The Aspen Skiing Company, known locally as "Ski Co", is a commercial enterprise based in Aspen, Colorado in the United States.-History:Founded in 1946 by Walter Paepcke, it operates the Aspen/Snowmass resort complex, comprising four ski areas near the town of Aspen...
with them, and in 1947 they built and opened Ski Lift No. 1
Ski Lift No. 1
The former Ski Lift No. 1 begins on Aspen Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States, and climbs up the slopes of Aspen Mountain. It was built in the late 1940s on the site of Aspen's first ski lift, known as the Boat Tow...
, then the longest ski lift
Ski lift
The term ski lift generally refers to any transport device that carries skiers up a hill. A ski lift may fall into one of the following three main classes:-Lift systems and networks:...
in the world,. an event considered to have ended the quiet years and begun the development of Aspen into the upscale resort town it is today.
Skiing and the Aspen Music Festival
Aspen Music Festival and School
The Aspen Music Festival and School, founded in 1949, is an internationally renowned classical music festival that presents music in an intimate, small-town setting...
, begun to commemorate the bicentennial of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
in 1949, began attracting visitors to the city. The Hotel Jerome
Hotel Jerome
The Hotel Jerome is located on East Main Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a brick structure built in the 1880s that is often described as one of the city's major landmarks, its "crown jewel". In 1986 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places...
, then the only one in the city, could not always accomomdate them, and the Paepckes used the large houses in the West End when they had overflow. Elizabeth Paepcke, herself trained as a designer and architect, not only oversaw the renovation of the Wheeler–Stallard House but did some of the work herself, including ripping out some of the original wall plaster and replacing it with drywall
Drywall
Drywall, also known as plasterboard, wallboard or gypsum board is a panel made of gypsum plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper...
, partitioning and finishing the attic and replacing some of the fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...
s. The interior layout may have been altered during this time, possibly with the closure of the entrance to the servants' stairs in the rear and the entry to the backroom from the foyer and the addition of another bathroom on the first floor.
By 1952 the house was regularly housing visiting skiers, who slept in all the bedrooms save those on the attic under the gables. They had free run of the house, but rarely used its kitchens, instead going out to eat at the Jerome or Red Onion
The Red Onion
The Red Onion is a restaurant located on East Cooper Avenue in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is the oldest restaurant in the city, housed in a three-story red brick Italianate building dating to the late 19th century...
, the only restaurant in Aspen to have stayed open from the boom years. Maids from the hotel cleaned it and made the beds while the guests were on the slopes. Among them were Dan Holly, inventor of the first metallic ski.
Within four years, other lodging had opened in the city and the guesthouses were less necessary. By 1956 the Wheeler–Stallard, like the other West End houses owned by the Paepckes, were instead used as employee housing. Henri Cashid, chef at the Jerome, lived there with his wife starting that year. The upstairs bedrooms were also used to house the hotel's waitresses. The hotel installed a communal phone in the foyer
Foyer
A foyer or lobby is a large, vast room or complex of rooms adjacent to the auditorium...
there so the waitresses could better communicate with their superiors about their work schedules.
Aspen benefited from other initiatives of the Paepckes during this period. The Aspen Institute
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...
, a product of the Goethe bicentennial, began to focus more on larger global issues. Beginning in 1951, its annual Executive Seminar had drawn some of the nation's top executives to the city. In 1963, two years after Walter Paepcke died, the house became the home of Alvin Eurich
Alvin C. Eurich
Alvin Christian Eurich was a 20th Century American educator who is most notable for having served as the first President of the State University of New York from 1949–1951....
, the Institute's first president, as an employment benefit.
As part of that process, Elizabeth Paepcke oversaw another renovation of the house, primarily focused on its structural system
Structural system
The term structural system or structural frame in structural engineering refers to load-resisting sub-system of a structure. The structural system transfers loads through interconnected structural components or members.-High-rise buildings:...
. The basement, she told an interviewer later, had severe deficiencies. "You could see daylight four ways through the stone," she said. "[C]an you imagine what happened in winter? Everything froze up, all the pipes and everything. They were always renewing the pipes and never repairing the basement."
Other changes made during this period including removing the section of porch that wrapped around the north elevation, supposedly requested by Eurich and his wife, and the current decoration on the first floor. The Institute reimbursed her for not only the $38,000 ($ in modern dollars) the effort cost her but the Paepckes' original expenditure in purchasing the property. In return it received the right to use the property as a residence for its president, although it was still owned by Walter Paepcke's life insurance trust
Life insurance trust
A life insurance trust is an irrevocable, non-amendable trust which is both the owner and beneficiary of one or more life insurance policies. Upon the death of the insured, the Trustee invests the insurance proceeds and administers the trust for one or more beneficiaries...
.
Eurich, his wife Nell and their children (who both attended boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
s and were rarely in Aspen) took up residence in the house in 1964. It became their primary home, and Nell Eurich converted the attic space into a study. In 1966, they began hosting the opening cocktail parties
Cocktail party
A cocktail party is a party where cocktails are served. Women may choose to wear what has become known as a cocktail dress.Although many believe the inventor of the cocktail party to be Alec Waugh of London, who in 1924 found a need for this pleasant interlude before a dinner party, an article in...
of the institute's summer programs at their home, to give participants an experience of Aspen beyond the Meadows complex it occupies. The following year, Eurich resigned as president to become a trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...
of the institute and devote more energy to fundraising. His wife became dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
of Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
, and the couple moved to their New York apartment.
They were the last real residents of the house. William Stevenson
William Stevenson (athlete)
William Edwards Stevenson was an American track and field athlete, lawyer and diplomat, who won the gold medal in 4x400 m relay at the 1924 Summer Olympics and later served as president of Oberlin College....
, who served as interim president of the institute for two years, never lived there. His successor, Joseph Slater, moved the institute's headquarters to New York in 1968, making the house unnecessary as a residence for the institute's president.
1969–present: Historical society
This time the house's vacancy was short-lived. The Aspen Historical Society, founded in 1963, had previously exhibited in City HallAspen City Hall
Aspen City Hall, known in the past as Armory Hall, Fraternal Hall, is located at the intersection of South Galena Street and East Hopkins Avenue in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a brick building dating to the 1890s...
and the Wheeler Opera House
Wheeler Opera House
The Wheeler Opera House is located at the corner of East Hyman Avenue and South Mill Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a stone building erected during the 1890s, from a design by Willoughby J. Edbrooke...
, with no permanent home. It quickly leased the house from the institute and opened it as a museum in 1969. Within a few months, it had raised the money to buy the house for $140,000 ($ in modern dollars) and by the end of the year it owned the property.
By the 1970s Aspen had become a popular getaway for affluent celebrities and business executives. The society was able to raise considerable money from the community. In 1976 it built the "carriage house" to serve as an archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
for its collections, to the north, with a driveway on Hallam Street. This was the last major change to the property, and the only outbuilding it has ever had.
In 2000 the society began a third set of renovations to make the house a better museum space. They were finished a year later. Since the society expected that at some future point it would use the space as a historic house museum, all the interior furnishings were retained. Outside, the picket fence
Picket fence
A picket fence is a variety of fence that has been used mostly for domestic boundaries. Until the introduction of advertising on fences in the 1980s, a Cricket field was also usually surrounded by a picket fence, giving rise to the expression rattling the pickets for a ball hit firmly into the...
was removed and the gardens redesigned to create a more open public space for the weddings and other events the society rents its grounds for. After the renovations, it opened its "Spirit of Aspen" exhibit. It closed in 2006 but can still be viewed online.