Wheeler–Stallard House Informations

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 B. 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 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 82, 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 corbeled 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 bargeboards. Recessed within are two casement windows 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.

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 Paepcke's ownership in the years after World War II; and its present ownership by the historical society.

Jerome B. Wheeler, then the minority partner in the Macy's 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.

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 1930, 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 ($151,000 in modern dollars), a quarter of what she had paid for it, 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 assets 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.

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