The Inside Story
How a Montana City Rescued its Signature Mansion
By Amy Stix | Online Only | June 14, 2010
The City of Bozeman, Mont., stepped in to restore Story Mansion, once a fraternity house.
Credit: City of Bozeman
Surrounded by elegant homes in a historic district of Bozeman, Mont., the 100-year old Story Mansion—one of only three remaining city-block mansions in Montana—has long reigned as the grandest in town. But until recently, the house's future was precarious.
Built in 1910 by T.B. Story, son of local cattle and gold magnate Nelson Story, the 22-room mansion was designed by architect C.S. Haire, who also designed Montana's state capitol. But just 12 years after Story built his home, which incorporates Queen Anne Victorian, Tudor, and Craftsman styles, he sold it due to a dwindling fortune.
The buyers were the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity of Montana State University, which owned Story Mansion until 2003. Though "fraternity brothers" and "preservationists" are not typically associated, "They were good stewards of it," says Dede Taylor, art historian and co-founder of Friends of the Story Mansion, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the landmark as a public cultural and community center. "It's probably due to their ownership that [the mansion] still exists," she adds.
Seven years ago, the fraternity put the mansion on the market. Offers on the two-acre property included plans to subdivide and develop it for multiple dwellings, and a public melee ensued. Preservation advocates, concerned the unique house and grounds would be forever altered, rallied for the City of Bozeman to purchase and preserve the building and acreage as a public park. Others countered that public ownership of the mansion, which necessitated major renovations, was a waste of taxpayer money. (Local pro-development advocates did not respond to requests for comment.)
After a 4-1 vote, Bozeman's city commission allocated more than $1 million dollars to purchase Story Mansion, its carriage house, and the entire city block. Save America's Treasures bestowed a grant of $493,839 in 2004. In all, the city received—with support from Montana's congressional delegation—$1.2 million in grants and federal funds to complete exterior rehabilitation of the property.
For Jane Davidson Klockman, a neighbor and co-founder of Friends of the Story Mansion, (Amanda Drysdale, great-granddaughter of T.B. Story, is also co-founder) the restoration project meant not only saving the home, but the surrounding area too. "This is the pivotal property in this historic south central neighborhood," Klockman says. She worried that if the mansion had gone to developers, neighborhood rezoning could have followed, paving the way for "creeping commercialism" in a solidly residential district.
Although the city-driven renovation was a contentious issue in the town of 37,000, Story Mansion's restored first floor has become a popular events center since it opened last fall.
Detail of Story Mansion in Bozeman, Montana
Credit: Mark Hufstetler
"It was fun to take something 100 years old and bring it back to life," says construction manager Russ Olsen, owner of R and R Taylor Construction, which oversaw the mansion's exterior rehabilitation and first-floor overhaul.
Olsen's crew leveled ground floors he describes as "crookeder than a dog's hind legs" and, in the home's airy parlors, carpenters unearthed original quarter-sawn white oak buried beneath three different coverings. Those floors gleam now - as do oak doors, wainscoting, and beadboard, painstakingly replaced and matched to the original. T.B. Story's study, nearly destroyed by water leaking from an upstairs bathroom, "is the most improved room in the building," Olsen says. Every leaded-glass pane and brass handle on what was likely Story's gun cabinet was removed, cleaned, and replaced. The same was done to exquisitely detailed art-glass cabinets in the home's library.
Kim Everts of Comma-Q Architecture guided Olsen's team. Transforming Story Mansion into a public space challenged her "to make [the building] accessible and to be respectful of the historic character that was there," she says.
Since opening to the public last year, Story Mansion has hummed with tours, holiday teas, a public Halloween party, weddings, a film festival and jazz performances. Proceeds from the mansion's rentals go toward ongoing maintenance and, according to Dede Taylor of Friends of the Story Mansion, the proceeds have nearly covered those costs. Taylor's group is raising additional funds to restore the second and third floors, which it hopes will become offices for educational and cultural institutions. The Friends group has also discussed plans to turn the ample carriage house into a public art space.
"What we're doing is so unique. Other mansions are museums," says Kaaren Jacobson, who championed the mansion's public ownership while serving as mayor of Bozeman. And though some locals fear the city might still put the mansion on the market, a 50-year conservation easement—conditions of the Save America's Treasures grant—provides safeguards.
Klockman, who recounts her father's childhood memories of hearing waltzes floating from T.B. Story's third-floor ballroom, is delighted that "the mansion is making a new history now."
Amy Stix is a freelance writer based in Bozeman, Mont.
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Comments
Submitted by Kay at: July 5, 2010
I am a granddaughter of T.B. Story and visited the house last October. I am delighted with the restoration of the 1st floor & hope it will continue to the 2nd floor & the ball room! Many thanks to Dede Taylor, my couxins Martha Drysdale & Amanda and the rest of the dedicated Bozemanites!!!
Submitted by Jane at: June 25, 2010
For views of the interior of the Story Mansion, check the Friends of the Story web site www.friendsofthestory.org. Guided tours are offered Sundays at 12 noon and 1 p.m.
Submitted by Michelle at: June 22, 2010
Great story!
Submitted by Mimi at: June 22, 2010
It would have been nice to have had some photos of the revealed interiors with its integral architectural design...and to see how it is now furnished for its new public uses.