An 1880s Victorian Mansion in the Colorado Rockies: The Estemere Estate at Palmer Lake

by Edwards, Daniel

  Some of the sordid details of their marital problems are on the DVD.

  Thomas Costello came to Denver as early as 1910. By 1916, when he married Cora Carnahan, Thomas’ father, John, finally divorced, was in the oil business in Independence, Kansas. Thomas worked as a broker in Denver, and was at Estamere for short times between 1916 or 1917 and 1919, but he apparently left Denver and moved to Los Angeles about 1921. Cora may or may not have gone to California with him, but the two did apply for a passport in January 1924 in Los Angeles. At that time, Thomas was selling real estate in Los Angeles. The Costellos must have separated for good and divorced in the mid-1920s, and it appears Thomas subsequently remarried and raised a family in California. He died in southern California in July 1968 at the age of 80.

  Harold Smith Carnahan (Son of Cora Smith Carnahan)

  Harold Carnahan was born on 28 January 1894 in Denver. He spent time at Estamere with his mother from 1898 to 1912. Harold attended a prep school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and entered Yale University. He went to Bermuda in 1916 to attend his mother’s and Thomas Costello’s wedding. Harold joined the U.S. Army in 1917 and took training at Plattsburg, New York. He was about to be sent overseas when World War I ended in November. Harold committed suicide in Pasadena, California, on 09 November 1924.

  Doris Leonora Carnahan (Daughter of Cora Smith Carnahan)

  Doris Carnahan was born in September 1895. She attended Miss Summer’s School in Washington, D.C., and was a Denver debutant. Doris probably spent parts of 20 summers at Estamere. Being her mother’s only daughter, Doris was often with Cora, especially after Cora’s divorce in 1915 and Doris’ own divorce from Courtland Dines in 1918. She was staying with Cora in New York in 1920 and later that year went with her mother to California. Doris married Robert C. Van Schaack of Denver about 1921. She had three children with him: Robert, Peter, and Cora. Doris C. Van Schaack died in Denver on 14 November 1957 at the age of 62. [Cora Van Schaack’s daughter married a Moore. Their daughter, Julia Moore Mynett visited Estemere in 2005—see Chapter 14.]

  Emily E. Carnahan (Daughter of Cora Smith Carnahan)

  Emily Carnahan was born in Denver in 1902. She likely spent most summers at Estamere with her mother from 1903 to 1918. Emily married Charles Wilson of Denver and had two daughters, Patricia and Shirley. That marriage must have ended by 1930, for Emily then was staying with her daughters and her mother near Phoenix, Arizona. Later, Emily owned the Glory Hole Saloon at Central City and was once convicted in Georgetown on charges of drunken and reckless driving, a sentence she rejected by filing a motion for a new trial. Emily Wilson was living in Denver in 1957 and died there on 14 August 1963. [David Forsyth wrote a biography of Emily Wilson. It is included on the DVD with his permission.]

  Courtland Stark Dines (First Husband of Doris L. Carnahan)

  Courtland S. Dines was surely one of the most flamboyant but troubled personalities ever to be associated with Estamere. Referred to at times as a clubman, playboy, oil operator, crack golfer, broker, Denver millionaire, and social bon vivant, Courtland made national headlines in 1924 when he was shot in his Los Angeles apartment in the presence of two young Hollywood actresses. Although we have found no specific newspaper reference to his spending time at Palmer Lake, surely his wife, the former Doris Carnahan, took Courtland to see and spend at least a night or two at the Smith/Carnahan family summer mansion during the summer of 1915 or 1916.

  Courtland was born in Brunswick, Missouri, on 09 July 1889. His father, Tyson S. Dines, brought his family to Colorado from St. Louis in 1892. Tyson became a prominent attorney in Denver, made a large fortune out of the fees he charged as an executor of the estate of Winfield Scott Stratton, a Colorado Spring’s multimillionaire, was later trustee of the Myron Stratton Home in that city, and worked as general counsel for David H. Moffat’s Denver and Salt Lake Railroad. Tyson was also a witness to the will Eben Smith signed in 1901. Tyson Dines, however, did not always set a very good example for his son, nor had he instilled the necessary social courtesies in his daughter, as the following incident that took place in Denver in 1906 demonstrated:

  Attacked in the library of his own home at Ninth and Pennsylvania Avenue Sunday afternoon, J.K. Mullen [president of the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company], the millionaire milling man, was struck several times with a dog whip by Tyson S. Dines, knocked to the floor…and threatened with death by Mr. Dines, who carried a large-caliber revolver. Mr. Mullen swore out a warrant charging Mr. Dines with assault to kill.

  [T]he cause of the assault was an alleged insult offered to Miss Virginia Dines, daughter of the assailant of the millionaire, over a telephone. Mr. Dines and Mr. Mullen are on a two-party line. The latter attempted to use the telephone shortly after 12 o’clock Sunday to call a physician in an urgent case, but found it busy. According to his statement, he waited thirty-two minutes, during all of which time Miss Dines kept up her conversation with a young man. He at length requested her to allow him to use the telephone for a few minutes, explaining that it was a matter of life and death that a physician be called. Mr. Mullen claims that Miss Dines answered him impertinently and told him not to “butt in.”

  He replied that he would hold the line until she allowed him to use it. Courtland Dines, Mr. Dines’ second son, interfered and told Mr. Mullen that he talked like the colored coachman, and Mr. Mullen said that no lady would hold the telephone under the circumstances [and] that Miss Dines insisted on keeping up her conversation.

  As a result, Courtland Dines and a friend…left the Dines residence…and went to the Mullen home. They demanded to see Mr. Mullen, the affair was talked over and the two young men started away apparently satisfied of the trivial character of the controversy.

  Hardly had they left the Mullen residence when Tyson Dines appeared on the scene. He carried a dog whip used in the Dines’ stables for keeping the hounds in leash, and walked into the hall of the Mullen residence and demanded to see Mr. Mullen.

  Mrs. Mullen and her daughters asked Mr. Dines to step into the drawing room. He saw Mr. Mullen and went to meet him, demanding in strident tones whether he had said that Miss Virginia Dines was no lady. Mr. Mullen replied that if Mr. Dines would calm himself and be seated he would talk the matter over with him and explain just what the telephone conversation had been…. Without waiting for a reply, [Dines] advanced upon the aged man in whose house he was and struck at him with the heavy dog whip.

  The thud of the blow seemed to infuriate Mr. Dines the more, while Mr. Mullen was too astonished to defend himself. Mr. Dines knocked his victim down and knelt on him, striking him in the face with his fists and breaking his glasses. Mrs. Mullen and her daughters, frightened nearly to death, attempted to drag Mr. Dines from their father. In the melee a revolver either fell from Dines’ pocket or was dropped by him. He picked it up immediately and waved it around the room. The women screamed and Mrs. Mullen implored Dines not to kill her husband, telling him that a man was dying in the room above. Dines is said to have replied that he did not give a ---- if there were four dead in the house. However, the infuriated lawyer took his revolver and whip and left the house.

  Tyson Dines was arrested, charged with assault with intent to kill, and made respondent in a $50,000 damage suit. Perhaps of greater worry to the lawyer, the directors of the Denver Club, “considered the holy of holies by Denver society,” initiated a proceeding to determine whether he should be expelled for conduct unbecoming a member of that exclusive club. Later, mutual friends successfully intervened to bring about a settlement, with the result that the suits were withdrawn and Attorney Dines made a public apology and agreed to pay all legal expenses.

  As a young man, Courtland Dines became associated with the railroad and oil investment activities of other Dines’ family members. The Dines and the Carnahans both moved in the highest circle of Denver society, so it was not surprising when Courtland Dines (almost 26 years old) married Doris Carnahan (who was 19) in Denver on 26 June 1915. Courtland enlisted in the U
.S. Navy as a seaman in 1917 or 1918. Shortly after his discharge, Doris sued him for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty. The couple was divorced in November 1918 after less than three and one-half years of marriage.

  Courtland remarried in Brookline, Massachusetts, in September 1920, but that marriage ended less than three years later after his wife charged him with cruelty and inebriety. Shortly after that, Courtland relocated to Los Angeles where he controlled a chain of filling stations and oil refineries. He began socializing with Hollywood movie stars and became a drinking companion of Mabel Normand, a former model and famous motion picture comedienne. Mabel was a close friend of another screen star, Edna Purviance, described as “Charlie Chaplin’s golden-haired leading lady, the humble and saintly ingénue of his early film comedies.” Edna had won rave reviews for her role in the 1923 movie A Woman of Paris that Chaplin wrote, directed, and produced.

  Mabel Normand (l) and Edna Purviance.

  Courtland Dines had celebrated New Year’s Eve at a Los Angeles party and returned to his apartment in the early hours of 01 January 1924 with Edna Purviance, then rumored to be his fiancée. At some point, Mabel Normand joined them. The Los Angeles police were called to Dines’ apartment that afternoon and found Dines lying on a sofa in his living room bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound in the abdomen. The shooter, Al Kelly, alias Horace Greer, was working as Mabel Normand’s chauffer and turned out to be an escaped convict from an Oklahoma chain gang. He had gone to Dines’ apartment to pick up Mabel Normand and had used Normand’s gun in the shooting. There were rumors that Kelly was secretly in love with his employer and jealous of Dines and that Dines had become violently intoxicated and threatened Purviance, so Normand had called Kelly to bring her gun just in case. Kelly claimed when he arrived at Dines’ apartment, he found the actress intoxicated, but when he tried to take her home, Dines grabbed a bottle and threatened to harm him. Kelly said he shot Dines in self-defense.

  At Kelly’s subsequent trial for assault, the court found it difficult to determine the facts. Dines said he had blacked out and did not know who had shot him. Norman said that when Kelly entered the apartment, Edna’s corsets were unlaced and she had pushed Edna into the bedroom to help her get dressed. Edna pleaded “faulty memory” and could not say what had happened. The judge suspected a conspiracy of silence and threatened to charge Dines and the two actresses with obstruction of justice. Kelly was never convicted, and Dines recovered from his wound. Newspapers around the country played up this lurid Hollywood scandal with its overtones of sex, drugs, and alcohol. Several state boards of film censorship discussed banning the showing of films starring Normand and Purviance, and the scandal effectively ended the movie careers of both actresses.

  Courtland returned to Denver that summer where he confronted rumors that he was either engaged to or had secretly married Miss Edna Purviance, but that relationship soon ended. Courtland, however, married a third time in 1925. His bride was another Denver society girl, but by 1930, she had divorced him. “Court’s” life took another bizarre turn in 1931 when his younger brother, Eugene Dines, filed a court petition stating that Courtland was incapable of taking care of his property. A judge held a hearing and agreed. Courtland was taken into custody at Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel and confined in the Colorado Springs Psychopathic Hospital. Courtland Dines married a fourth time, but died of a heart attack in Denver in March 1945 at the age of 55. Courland Dines probably never visited Palmer Lake again after 1916 or 1917, but he remains today one of the most unforgettable figures ever to pass through the entrance to Estamere.

  Frank Leroy Smith (Son of Eben Smith)

  Frank L. Smith, the only son of Eben and Emily Smith, was born at Central City, Colorado, on 26 May 1871. Frank operated mining properties in Leadville with his father and became a millionaire in his own right. In Denver, Frank was the treasurer of the Mine and Smelter Supply Company which was organized by himself, his father, and others in 1895.

  Frank married Josephine Hill, daughter of a prominent mining man, in Leadville in 1894. In August 1907, Frank hired a detective named Richard Hughes to investigate his wife, and it was generally admitted that Hughes found enough evidence for Smith to sue for divorce, but Smith appeared to have sown some wild oats himself. More to the point, even allowing for lawyers’ tendencies to paint the worst possible pictures of their adversaries, Frank Smith must have been an odious man at home and perhaps a heavy drinker as well. Josephine’s complaint for divorce claimed that

  for a period of several years last past [Frank L. Smith] has repeatedly abused and maltreated the plaintiff [Josephine], and has made use of profane, violent and abusive language towards her…and applied coarse, opprobrious and profane epithets to her, in her presence and in the presence of others, and…has frequently and habitually taunted her, and quarreled and railed at her with harsh and unkind words and language, and intentionally insulted her, sometimes in her presence alone, and at other times in the presence also of her children and others; and [Frank] has…given way to frequent and violent outbursts of rage and passion…at which times he has usually abused, raved and quarreled at [Josephine] and addressed her in coarse, profane and threatening language…and caused [Josephine] great terror, humiliation and mental suffering, and destroyed her peace of mind…. That during a period of more than two years last past, [Frank] has been in the habit of frequently remaining away from the home…sometimes for several days and nights at a time…and when [Frank] has been at home, he has either treated [his wife] with coldness, indifference and disrespect, or has been quarrelsome, ill-natured, and unkind or abusive to her in his language, conduct and demeanor; and has also…threatened [her] with physical violence…and caused her to fear for her personal safety.

  In the end, Josephine was granted a divorce, along with a $60,000 alimony payment, a house and its furnishings worth $100,000, and custody of the children in November 1907. Oddly enough, the following August Josephine had a rendezvous with Hughes, the same detective that shadowed her. She married him in Kansas City!

  It is doubtful that Emily Smith approved of Frank’s wandering eye, divorce, and subsequent remarriage, so Frank’s last days at Estamere with his family were probably in 1907.

  Frank Smith then married Lulu Wipperman in Trinidad, Colorado, in 1908. Lulu had just obtained a divorce in Texas and had two young children. In May 1910, Frank Smith shot himself at his home in Denver. The bullet entered his chest about an inch above his heart and penetrated his left lung. His friends and family insisted that the gun went off accidentally as Frank was cleaning it in his bedroom. When Frank died three days later, a formal request for an inquest was made, as Frank carried a large amount of life insurance, and there was concern the amounts would not be paid. Later, press reports spoke of Frank’s suicide, so apparently his death was not ruled accidental.

  After Frank’s will was filed for probate, another woman, a Mrs. Claire or Clara S. Miller, came forward, filed suit, and demanded a portion of Frank Smith’s estate on the grounds that she was Smith’s common-law wife. The case was settled out of court, and Mrs. Miller reportedly received $50,000. Lulu Smith moved on with her life and by 1920 she had married and then divorced a man named Worthington and was living in St. Petersburg, Florida.

  Around 1902, Frank, possibly with the support of Eben, built a home in Denver. According to the Denver Times newspaper article, below, the house built on the lot referenced in the article, was a gift to Frank from Eben.

  Eben Leroy Smith (Son of Frank L. Smith)

  Eben L. Smith was born in Leadville on 26 October 1894. He went to Estamere as a young child (1898-1907) and also stayed there with his wife, the former Margaretta Onderdonk of Denver, in the summer of 1916. Eben worked at the International Trust Company in Denver but left his job to join an officers training camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, in June 1917. After winning his commission, he joined the 355th regiment of the American expeditionary force in France where he saw many months of active service. Eben was killed
in action in France on 09 November 1918 just two days before the end of the war. He was 24. His estate was valued at $154,500.

  Melvin Hill Smith (Son of Frank L. Smith)

  Melvin Smith was born 13 May 1898 in Leadville. He too spent part of his summers as a child at Estamere. Melvin enrolled at the Colorado State Agricultural College at Fort Collins where he met and married his first wife, Marian Adelaide Parker, at the age of 18. The couple had two children: Melvin Hill Smith Jr., born in April 1918; and Betty Adelaide Smith, born in May 1919. Melvin worked as a bank clerk at the International Trust Company in Denver, but his main interests seemed to be women and cars. He entered military training in 1918, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. He and Marian were divorced in July 1919, after his wife noted that Melvin’s life “had been a continuous trail of affinities.” Melvin admitted to the judge that he cared more for other women than for his wife and children, and he gave Marian $20,000 to be a free man. Six months later, Melvin married Virginia Stone of Denver, and they moved to Los Angeles. Melvin had purchased land in the Wilshire area of Los Angeles to build a home, but before dawn on 28 June 1921, he lost control of his car due to excessive speed, crashed into a brick pillar, and was killed. There were two passengers in his car—a Los Angeles policeman who also was killed, and an 18 year-old girl who survived. Melvin Smith was only 23.