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

by Edwards, Daniel

  Evalena Macy was a unique force for unity in Palmer Lake. She brought together for fellowship and worship Christians of different denominations; summer visitors and town residents; people from the historically-distinct communities of Glen Park, Pine Crest, and Palmer Lake; those with advanced degrees; and “country folk” who had not completed high school. She was prominently involved in a wide variety of community organizations and activities at a time when few women exercised such religious and social leadership in small-town America. After retiring, Evalena Macy returned to live in Emporia, Kansas, where she died in May 1982.

  Charles W. Orr

  Charles Orr was born 17 September 1886 in Marion, Kansas. He graduated from Colorado College in 1908 and served in the Army Air Corps during World War I. He then worked as an electrical engineer in New York City. Charles and his wife, Nondis, came to Palmer Lake in 1929 and began to raise silver foxes. Soon they switched to Angora rabbits and became one of the first commercial breeders of that species in the country. The Orr’s interest in marketing Angora wool products was reflected in the curriculum of the New Deal vocational camps at Palmer Lake, and the Orr’s association with Anna Fisher led to the founding of El Conejo Blanco, a school focusing on producing textiles from Angora wool. The Orrs instructed El Conejo Blanco students on raising Angora rabbits when the training classes were held at Pinehurst, near the Orr’s home, and later at Estemere.

  Orr was a founder of the American Angora Rabbit Breeders Cooperative in August 1938 and was its secretary-treasurer for many years. The Cooperative set up a mill at Palmer Lake about 1946 where looms wove Angora textiles and a warehouse stored much of the nation’s Angora wool. Nondis Orr was editor of the American Angora News, which the Cooperative published. Charles Orr testified before the U.S. House of Representative’s subcommittees in 1949 and 1950, and asked that duties be imposed on foreign Angora wool to protect U.S. producers. Orr served on the Palmer Lake town council and planning commission. He died in Colorado Springs at the age of 101 in April 1988.

  Graham family photos donated by the Mead family.

  Harvey R. Solberg

  Solberg was at Estemere for only one day that we know of, but he appears in this “gallery of personalities” because of the effort he made at Estemere in June 1938 to spread the message of the cooperative movement and the need for farmers to organize. Solberg is profiled here for his long and distinguished career as the president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. He was born in North Dakota in 1906 and had served as the youngest state legislator ever to be elected in that state. He came to Colorado and began to work for the then Colorado Farmers Union in 1937. Solberg was elected president of the organization in 1940, a position he held for 22 years. He organized bus tours to Washington, D.C., to support legislation to benefit farmers and ranchers. For example, Solberg led the 1953 Cattlemen’s Caravan that lobbied elected officials to decrease beef imports and end monopoly buying practices in the livestock industry. Solberg often testified before the Colorado state legislature, before the U.S. Congress, and in 1960, he appeared before the national platform committees of the Republican and Democratic parties to urge adoption of strong family farm planks in their platforms. Solberg was part of a delegation of American farm leaders that went to Britain as guests of the British ministry of agriculture in 1943. He went to India in the 1959 to learn about its agricultural production and met with Prime Minister Nehru. Solberg organized a conference in 1961 to support increased U.S. food exports; George McGovern, director of the Food for Peace Program, came to Denver and addressed the conference. He served as chairman of the National Farmers Union (NFU) executive committee, and received the NFU Award for Meritorious Service. Harvey Solberg died in Denver in December 1978.

  There are more items related to this chapter on the DVD.

  Charles Orr 1951—RMN.

  Chapter 7

  Families, Tourists, and the Estemere Lodge (1935-1949)

  The Adams, Palmers, and Vesseys Buy Estemere

  The Rocky Mountain Summer School, Inc. (RMSS) sold Estemere to Oliver M. Adams, Clarence I. Vessey, and Rodney D. Palmer on 27 May 1935. Rev. O. M. Adams was minister at a Congregational church in Onawa, Iowa. C. I. Vessey was secretary of the YMCA in Colorado Springs. Rodney D. Palmer was a YMCA physical director in Oklahoma City. Marriage ties connected the three families: Adams was married to Lily Blanche Vessey, the sister of Clarence and Ellen Vessey, who was married to Rodney Palmer.

  At the time of the sale, the RMSS, Inc. had paid off its mortgage on the property and all back taxes.[110] The sales price was $5,000, $2,500 less than what the RMSS Inc. had paid for the property nine years before. That might suggest Estemere had depreciated considerably under the “wear and tear” of all the college students and grade school girls who had lived in the house since 1927!

  According to Adams’ son, Carroll, the purchase of Estemere came about in this way:

  In traveling to Colorado in February 1935, Dad [Rev. Adams] met an old friend he had known in McPherson College. It was through him that Dad learned of the old mansion lying idle at Palmer Lake, Colorado…. The roadways [to Estemere] were lined with alternating maple and ash trees, now grown to form archways over the roads. It had been a home of splendor. The interior was still furnished with carpeting, oil paintings, and lovely furniture….

  Dad envisioned the place as a summer home for the Adams’ tribe and for all of our relatives…. [He] also saw the place as one where a steady summer tourist trade could be cultivated; a place to which he might run tours for those who wanted a vacation of rest and quiet in the Colorado mountains…. Another thing that Dad couldn’t resist was the fact that the place could be bought for $5,000….

  Since Dad couldn’t financially swing the deal himself, he invited Uncle Clarence [Vessey] and Uncle Rodney [Palmer] to go into it with him. In May of 1935 the three agreed to buy the place, paying $1,500 down and agreeing to pay $500 per year…. [When] we journeyed to Palmer Lake [after the sale], we found the place was crowded with work projects. There were leaking roofs to fix and all the buildings needed painting. The lawn needed attention and the lawn mowers wouldn’t work. The plumbing was a maze of antiquated pipes.[111]

  Frank also remarked that Oliver Adams was the businessman of the three families and thought of ways to produce income from the property to defray the costs of operations, upkeep, and taxes. Adams had started a business named “Adams Tours” in 1933, but it was practically defunct by 1939. Before then, Adams Tours did arrange for some people to come to Palmer Lake and stay at Estemere. The mansion, however, never proved to be “a big money maker.”

  In early June of 1935, the paper noted that Estemere would be opened to the public about 01 July as a summer hotel and camp, and that Mr. Adams expected to make it one of his principal stops on the tours he organized throughout the country.[112] Thus, Estemere became “Estemere Lodge.” On the evening of 18 July, there was an open house at Estemere, the first time the house had been opened to the community since 1930.

  Besides Estemere providing a summer vacation destination for the three families, Frank Adams called attention to another point:

  An additional reason for purchasing the property was to provide a home for Grandpa [Frank] and Grandma [Lucy] Vessey, who remained in residence year round as caretakers. They lived in several different parts of the property varying with the years.[113]

  The Adams Family, November 1930. Back row: Wendell, Oliver, Carroll (Mary Jane Adams’ father) b. 1910.

  Front row: Olive, Frank b. 1921, Blanche, Donna b. 1921, Rowena b. 1914.

  A Sanborn Real Photo Postcard of “The Estemere Lodge.” Photo taken ca. 1935.

  The Vessey parents, Frank and Lucy, had lived on a homestead farm in Kansas. They could not pay its taxes during the “dustbowl” years and had lost the land to the government. They became residents at Estemere in the fall of 1935. The senior Vesseys invited their son, C. I. Vessey and his wife, Ethel, and their daughters, Winifred and Vera, to have Thanksgiving
dinner with them at Estemere that year.[114] During the winters, Frank and Lucy Vessey would spend a few days in Colorado Springs with Clarence; then C. I. would come to see them at Palmer Lake. Frank Vessey died in May 1939 and no member of the three families stayed at Estemere in the winters after that.

  Frank Vessey and family ca. 1902.

  The people are (left to right): Frank Vessey, Lily Blanche (Mary Jane Adams’ grandmother), baby Harold, Clarence Irving, Lucartha (Lucy) and Ellen Vessey. Lucy had three other children who all died in infancy. Such was the sad fact of childbearing in the 19th century.

  The Adams family, consisting of Oliver, Blanche, and children Rowena, Olive, Frank, and Donna Ruth, came from Onawa, Iowa, in June 1936 to spend the summer at Estemere. C. I.’s brother, Harold Vessey, and his family stayed a few days at Estemere that month, and friends of the Adams from Iowa were also houseguests that summer.

  Lucy, Frank, Ethel, and C.I. Vessey at Estemere ca. 1939.

  W.M. & Winnie Metzler, Bernice & Buck A. Brenner (Winnie and Bernice are daughters of C. I. Vessey).

  The Rocky Mountain Association

  Nearly two years after purchasing Estemere, the three owners signed articles of incorporation for The Rocky Mountain Association, Inc. (RMA) on 08 February 1937.[115] The office of the corporation was to be in Palmer Lake, and the officers were Oliver M. Adams, president; Rodney D. Palmer, vice president; and Clarence I. Vessey, secretary-treasurer. The purpose of the non-profit company was for “Recreation—Fellowship—Leadership training for Youth and Adults in preparation for leadership in Religion, Educational and social agencies.”[116]

  There is no evidence, however, that the RMA organized or implemented any programs to realize those objectives. There are no reports of RMA annual meetings or that additional members to the Board were ever elected. (The Board could accommodate up to 15 members.) Perhaps the RMA officers initially had hoped to recruit other Board members to help organize leadership training programs, but with all three Estemere owners holding full-time jobs away from Palmer Lake and on vacation for limited periods during the year, there was no one available to devote the time and effort necessary to develop such programs and market them to potential attendees, if, indeed, the RMA founders had ever intended to carry out such a plan.

  The only other evidence of the RMA we have is a flyer issued in 1941 or 1942 when Adams had moved to Enterprise, Oregon. The flyer describes the facilities at Estemere and the costs for using them. It stressed the suitability of Estemere to accommodate groups of any size up to 70 people, be they camps, conferences, or family reunions. When a group rented Estemere, it was responsible for the costs of light and fuel and providing its own bedding. This suggests that the conveniences Estemere Lodge had offered its guests, when under the management of Adams Tours, had been reduced, in that now sheets and blankets were no longer provided to groups, who now also had to pay a charge for utilities.

  The Rocky Mountain Association Flyer.

  Preachers, Paperboys, and Tourists

  As Frank Adams has noted, that first summer (1935) Estemere provided lodging for those who were attending programs at Pine Crest—the Methodist camp located about a mile southeast of Estemere. One of the first guests at the new Estemere Lodge was Dr. J. M. Gray, chancellor of American University in Washington, D.C., who was lecturing at the Rocky Mountain Assembly meeting at Pine Crest.

  Other distinguished lodgers that month were Bishop and Mrs. Charles Mead of Kansas City; President Earl Harper of Evansville College, Indiana; Bishop H. A. Boaz of Ft. Worth, Texas; and Dr. L. B. Bower, president of Kansas Wesleyan College (see bio sketches at the end of the chapter). Other ministers undoubtedly stayed at Estemere over the next few years during conventions at Pine Crest, and young people attending camps at Pine Crest also spent nights at Estemere if accommodations at the camp were not available.

  Estemere was used to host other religious groups during the Adams/Vessey years. C. I. Vessey invited members of the El Paso County Ministerial Alliance for a lunch and meeting at Estemere, and entertained the Methodist Glee Club from Colorado Springs at the mansion. Mrs. Vessey had her Sunday School class up for a picnic. The Kansas Wesleyan University choir spent a week at Estemere in August 1939. An Evangelical theological institute was held at Estemere in July 1941, and fifty ministers from several Western states attended the meetings. A Colorado Baptist Church Camp was held at Estemere about 1942.

  Adams contracted with some newspapers to award a week’s trip to Colorado as a prize to newsboys who won subscription contests.

  A group of 40 paperboys from Omaha, Nebraska, stayed at Estemere for a couple of nights in mid-July 1935. The boys went up Pikes Peak, and were entertained one evening by the Vessey quartet and by a Colorado Springs photographer, who showed pictures of Colorado mountain scenes in Pioneer Hall. Late that August, a group of newsboys from the Omaha Bee-News stopped at Estemere for two or three nights.

  In 1935 or 1936, a group of 19 young people earned a trip from Wichita, Kansas, to Colorado by selling subscriptions to the Wichita Eagle newspaper, as noted on the side of the Towanda school bus in which they arrived. Signs on the bus say “Bound for Palmer Lake, Colorado,” and “Adams Garden of Eden.” They hiked to the two reservoirs up the canyon west of Estemere, journeyed to Elephant Rock (a natural arched-rock formation about two miles east of Estemere), the Cave of the Winds, and Seven Falls in Colorado Springs. A 13 minute home movie was made of that group’s visit. Mary Jane Adams provided us with a copy of the film that can be viewed on the DVD.

  The Wichita Eagle paid for another group of young people to stay at Estemere over Memorial Day 1937, but this was a group of 26 high school seniors accompanied by the superintendent of schools in Leon, Kansas. Another group sent by the Wichita Eagle spent a week at Estemere in September 1938. All these trips were the result of O.M. Adams’ efforts to exploit the business potential of the Estemere property.

  Frank Adams also recalled that:

  For several years the main house and the cottage were used as a board and room house. My sisters served as waitresses and housemaids for several [summers]…. My father named the estate “The Garden of Eden” and it was so advertised. They had to drop this descriptive name when guests started showing up in the belief that it was a nudist camp!

  One of the pleasant diversions for our tourist guests was horseback riding. We did not stable the horses ourselves but rented them elsewhere. I spent the summer of 1936 escorting elderly (I thought) people several miles up the [North Monument] canyon road.[117]

  A flyer for the Estemere Lodge “in the Garden of Eden” notes the six-acre estate “of beautiful lawns and towering trees [features] quiet shady nooks, short interesting hikes, tennis, croquet, [and] miniature golf….” Rates of the Lodge were $1.50 a day for a single, $16.00 for weekly room and board, and a three-room cottage was available for $15.00 a week. Meals cost 35 cents for breakfast, 50 cents for lunch, and 60 cents for dinner—with an upcharge of 15 cents for “Special Trout, Steak or Chicken.”

  Besides those who heard about Estemere Lodge and came to Palmer Lake to stay for a weekend or longer, there were special group events held at Estemere. For example, the Red and White Store employees of Denver and Colorado Springs held a picnic on the Estemere lawn in mid-July of 1936. Later that month, a book review was presented at Estemere for the benefit of the Little Log Church. No admission was charged but donations were solicited. Twenty-six “subdeb” high school girls from Colorado Springs held a Halloween Party at Estemere in 1938.

  During the summer of 1937, the Adams family and the Vessey parents shared Estemere with El Conejo Blanco and its students (see Chapter 6), so it was not possible to hold other events at the house. Another meeting that received mention in print was a conference of the junior labor leaders of Denver that convened in Estemere in July 1941.

  Estemere was the venue for a number of community events, for which payment probably was not asked or expected. For example, late in 1938, three teachers at the Palm
er Lake school entertained teachers from Monument and Fountain at Estemere. They viewed movies of the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo and the Palmer Lake Yule Log ceremony filmed by Byron Medlock of Pine Crest. Toward the end of the 1940 school year, a Palmer Lake public school alumni banquet was held at Estemere, and the meal was prepared and served by members of the PTA. As at many such Estemere events through the years, Rev. Evalena Macy was present. About three weeks later, a surprise party for Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Hays, principal of the Palmer Lake public school for the previous eight years, was held at Estemere.

  The Adams family came to Estemere later in 1938 in smaller numbers, as their two daughters, Rowena and Olive, were married early in the summer. One of the big events in 1940 was the Adams family reunion held at Estemere from 09 to 11 July. The five brothers, one sister and their families—25 members in all—came from six states to Palmer Lake, the first time all had been together for 21 years. Bernard Vessey entertained them one evening with a musical program.[118]