Castle Marne Holiday Party
WHAT: RMGA MEETING – Castle Marne Holiday Party 6:30 – 8:30 pm
WHEN: Monday December 9, 2013. A lovely social evening to celebrate the holidays. There will be hors d’oeuvres and wine and soft drinks. There may be a very short business meeting 8:15 – 8:30pm. Members - $15, and guests $20.
WHERE: Castle Marne, 1572 Race Street, Denver, CO 80206.
PROGRAM: This is a social evening primarily.
Guide Line Review
Castle Marne Holiday Event
Castle Marne is a historic building, William Lang, (the same architect that designed the Molly Brown House Museum (MBH)). The Pieker family, who own Castle Marne, entertained us delightfully. The whole family – three generations – runs the B&B.
So, here is the history: John Wyman from a new York family came west, traveling five weeks on a stage coach. In 1866 he paid $3000 for the property. George Frye purchased 70 acres. At the time - 1870 - there were only about 5,000 people in Denver, but by the end of he decade there were 125,000 people.
The land was sold for $300,00 to Wilbur Raymond and development began in 1886 on the plat from 18th Avenue to 11th Avenue and from Franklin to Josephine Streets. This area had all the city cervices - gas and electric, water and sewer. William Lang designed the house as a model home for the development and it coast about $60,000 to build (about twice as much as the Molly Brown House and it is 1-1/2 times as large as MBH.
The exterior is made of rhyolite; the walls are 22" thick and are solid stone. The quarries later were put out of business by the brick factories.
The second owner of the house was James H. Platt - president of Denver paper Mills Company. Platt also served in the Civil War, was the US representative from Virginia for four terms and also served in President Grant's cabinet. He, along with others, worked for Colorado's statehood.
The third owner of the house was John Mason, who came from England to Texas. He moved to Denver in 1895. In 1899 he and is friends started the Museum of Natural History and he was its first curator and also the business manager. His wealth was made in Houston where he owned two department stores. In 1918 he moved to California for his health and died in 1928. John's second wife, Dora, did a memorial in Houston and Mason Park is named for him as well as Mason Hall in the Museum of Natural History - Mason Hall was torn down in 1985. John Mason was very interested in moths and butterflies and Castle Marne has on display six boxes from John Mason's collection. There are more species of butterflies and moths in Colorado than in any other state.
In 1918 Adele Van Cise bought the house and it became apartments (Adels's husband, Edwin, was the prosecutor of Wounded Knee). Adele's son Philip was the District Attorney in the 1920s ("The Sting"). Philip had been in the battle of the Marne in 1917 and he thought that the building reminded him of the castles he had seen along the Marne River and so it became Castle Marne.
The house had eight apartment units until the 1970s with four efficiency apartments on the 3rd floor, and two comfortable apartments on each of the first and second floors. In the 1980s it was turned into offices. It was not occupied when the water pipes burst in 1988. The photo beside the front door depicts what it looked like when the Pieker family bought the house for $186,000 and them spent $400,000 on the restoration. It now has ten guests rooms. The fleur de lis design from the turn of the century on the entry hall wall was all hand cast by Jim Parker and there are 384 of them. As we ascended the stairs we saw a beautiful peacock stained glass round window - build by Watkins Stained Glass - still in business in Littleton. The glass was made in Belgium before WW1.
On the second floor was the owner's suite - now the Presidential Suite. In the hall outside the owner's suite is a diamond dust mirror. In some places the Piekers removed 32 coats of paint from the woodwork in this room. The floor is original - quarter sawn oak - also unique because each piece is nailed, not tongue and groove. Also on the second floor is the Van Cise room which has the original 1889 - 1890 bath There are two other bedrooms on this floor.
On the third floor are four more bedrooms. It was originally built to be the ballroom and has 18' ceilings. Jim Pieker told us an amusing story about one of the efficiency apartment tenants on the third floor who commented on visiting that when she lived there the left side of the triptych window was actually in her bathroom, which had been built on a platform over the stairwell.
Many famous people have stayed at Castle Marne, including Tiny Tim and members of Motley Crue.
---Nancy Brueggeman
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