Master Bath
9 X 16 [13 X 16]
[Laundry added to Master Bath]
[13 X 13]
Table 1: The dimensions of the Main Floor rooms. [ ] indicates new features.
Note: All ceilings are approximately 9-9½ feet except the Billiard Room, which is 14 feet, and the Office and Master Bed Room, which are 11 feet.
The Entry
When we replaced the floors, we put marble in the entryway, including a 24 inch diameter marble “medallion.”
The Entry in 2010.
The Entry in 1998. This light fixture is one of the few “original” fixtures in the house.
The Sitting Room
In the Sitting Room, to the left of the main entry, someone had installed fixed French doors and had removed the Victorian header. We removed the French doors. One was made into a pocketdoor between the TV room and the Kitchen. The missing header was found in the downstairs bathroom of the Carriage House. It had been shortened to fit in the bathroom, so we had it extended back to its original size and reinstalled in its original position. There are pocket doors from the sitting room into the Dining Room.
The Sitting Room in 1997 and 2010.
The Parlor
The decorative painted border around the perimeter of the ceiling of the Parlor was painted by Rebecca Duke in 2000. Rebecca lay on her back on a scaffold and painted the repeating design freehand.
The Parlor ceiling in 2010.
The Dining Room
The wall from the Dining Room to what is now the Television Room was removed, probably by the RMSS, to make a larger dining room. The shelves to the left of the fireplace were originally the door to the Butler’s Pantry. Someone had covered this opening with plywood. We removed the plywood and Kim had nice knick-knack shelves installed. The shelves and drawers next to the small under-the-stairs closet were added by Ed Hubbard—the 1965-era carpenter who made the other cabinetry throughout the house. This was originally a doorway into the main entry but it is unknown when it was transformed.
Around 1999, Kim was told by Helen Follmer that the Billiard Room ceiling originally had a mural of Colorado wildflowers instead of the Delgado mural. So Kim contracted Robin Ward (Jeff Ward’s wife—no relationship to us) to paint a Colorado wildflower scene. We installed this beautiful mural on the dining room ceiling.
The Dining Room in 2010.
Colorado Wildflowers by Robin Ward.
The Television Room
The small area we use for our TV room was the original Kitchen and/or the servants’ quarters before Finley Thompson expanded the house around 1889. Later, the wall between this room and the Dining Room was removed—probably to enlarge the Dining Room for the RMSS. The original trim in the “work” areas of the house was plain, simple trim—because guests were not allowed into the common areas. Since the TV Room and the adjoining Kitchen, bathroom, and Radio Room are now part of the formal area of the house, we replicated the trim from the Dining Room, Parlor, and Sitting Room. This was accomplished by taking one of the “chrysanthemums” from the Dining Room, carefully removing all of the paint, and having three silicone molds made from it. Roger then cast over 150 of the chrysanthemums to be used in the head- and mid-blocks that were copied from the original trim. These reproduced blocks are in the TV room, Radio Room, Conservatory, and Butler’s Pantry.
An original “chrysanthemum;” a silicone mould and plastic chrysanthemum.
The Television Room in 2010. The painting above the sofa is where an exterior window once was.
The Radio Room
Roger began collecting transistor radios around 1996. In order to display part of my collection, Kim had Jeff Ward (no relationship) construct cherry shelves in the small room off the Kitchen. This room was probably added around 1889 as servants’ quarters, but no photo or written record has been found to verify this date. Jim Peterson used this room for his workout equipment.
The “Radio Room” in 2010.
The Guest Bathroom
The Guest Bathroom is between the Radio Room and the TV Room. As far as we can tell, it has been a bathroom since it was built—perhaps as early as 1889. There was originally an outside window where the mirror is hanging in the photo below, so we know this room was not originally part of Estamere I. We gutted this room and totally remodeled it. The sink was in the Carriage House bathroom in 1998.
The Kitchen
The area that was the Kitchen in 1998 was probably a kitchen at least back to 1929—Clara Ricter Euhus told us about working in the Kitchen when she was a student at the RMSS. That kitchen had a wood cookstove that was still there at the time of the 1965 flood. [This wood cookstove is now in the back of the two-car garage.] The flood must have nearly destroyed the kitchen, as it was decorated in 1960s funk—1960s appliances and cabinets, Formica countertops, and linoleum floors—when we bought Estemere. Kim had the Shed that was immediately behind the Kitchen moved to make room for a new, larger Kitchen. We extended the Kitchen by six feet. The only thing we kept from the 1998 Kitchen was the built-in NuTone mixer.
The Bathroom between the TV Room and the Radio Room. The tub is a reproduction “Slipper Tub.”
Kim wanted an old cast-iron sink. We found the 1925 sink of her dreams at Dr. Plumber in Denver. It had the original cast-iron legs. We had the legs stripped, buffed, and nickel plated. Roger did some of the tile work. The cherry cabinets were custom made to Kim’s designs by a local cabinet shop that is now closed. The “tin” ceiling is from a company that still manufactures tin panels from the original molds. The custom cherry trim is also to Kim’s design.
The Kitchen in 1997 and 2010 (below).
The Butler’s Pantry
The butler’s pantry was being used as a laundry room in 1998. Since the pantry is quite narrow, there was little room to maneuver. So, we removed the washer and dryer and began doing our laundry in the workshop of the Carriage House until we built a laundry room onto the main house in 2004. We paneled the walls with bead-board, tiled the floor, and installed a copper-plated “tin” ceiling.
The Music Room
The Music Room has pocket doors to the Parlor and to the Billiard Room. The large bookshelf unit was purchased from the Brass Key antique store in Salt Lake City. It dates from the early 1900s and was originally in the IOOF (Oddfellows) Hall in Salt Lake City. There was a player piano here in 1998—it is now on permanent loan to the Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts.
The Billiard Room
The stained glass window in the door from the Music Room into the Billiard Room was about to fall out due to fatigue in the original lead cane. Kim took the window to her good friend, Kathy Crovo, who meticulously restored the window. There apparently was another stained glass window in the outside door as well (the hardware is still there), but that stained glass is missing.
The flat area of the Billiard Room’s ceiling was pale blue. Roger and an assistant painted it off-white while standing on a scaffold. In 2000, portions of the plaster under Deane Delgado’s Three Muses painting were beginning to peel off. Mark Thomasson repaired the plaster and Rebecca Duke then restored the painting. The Rococo moldings on the Billiard Room ceiling are original.
The stained glass windows in the Billiard Room are original. However, as Deane Delgado reported, young vandals damaged several of the stained glass windows in the early 1960s. Stained glass experts we consulted told us that the painted medallions in some of the windows are quite old and that the stained-glass medallions were probably made to replace the original broken painted medallions. (Indeed, Deane Delgado spoke of the “hand-etched oval center pieces” being broken by vandals in his 1963 interview.) [However, in the 1893 high-resolution photo of Estemere one can see that the medallions in the two Billiard Room stained-glass windows on the east side are composed of caned stained-glass. Thus, the painted medallions replaced the broken caned medallions.]
The “Music” Room in 2010.
The restored Three Muses; the original Rococo moulding.
> Original medallion (left); Replacement medallion (right).
The Billiard Room in 2010.
Alcove off the Billiard Room—2010.
We believe that originally the alcove (above) contained the sixth stained glass window in the Billiard Room, and that the glass from the sixth window either was used to repair the other windows after vandals damaged the windows in the early 1960s or else it was damaged in the flood of 1965. In either case, we found a box of pieces from the sixth window covered with mud in the basement. [Hence, it may have been there during the flood.] Kim designed this new stained glass window using some of the old pieces for this mudroom we added to match up with the extended Kitchen. When we purchased Estemere in 1998, this opening was narrower and only about 30 inches deep and had colored-glass windows.
The “Smoking Room”
After dinner, Victorian men would retire to the “Smoking Room” to enjoy a cigar or pipe, and perhaps a small sip, away from the sensitive noses of Victorian women. Except for paint, this room remains as it was in 1998. Local rumor is that Dr. Thompson used this room as a “reception” room to consult with dental patients. There are no records to verify this. Dan Edwards found no evidence that Thompson practiced dentistry anywhere in Colorado after his return from London in 1882.
During construction of the new Master Bathroom in 2004, Roger was able to look at the underside of this room and the next (the Office). It was obvious that they were originally separate little stand-alone structures prior to being moved to their current location and being attached to the Billiard Room.
The “Smoking Room” in 2010.
Closeup of the tile on the mantle.
The Office
Local rumor also says that Dr. Thompson used this room as a “procedure” room to perform oral surgery on dental patients. There are no records to verify this. We re-wallpapered this room, painted, and added the crown molding. Roger used this room as his office.
The Master Bedroom—1900
In 1900, Eben Smith had his son, Frank, add this grand Master Bedroom onto the east side of Estamere. It still has the original pine floors with “Eben Smith Palmer Lake” penciled on the underside. We re-wallpapered, painted, and added the crown molding. In 2009, we added exterior automatic European “roll shutters” to the three large windows to block the early morning sun.
The Master Bedroom fireplace in 2010.
The Master Bathroom
Apparently, the “original” master bathroom [we do not know when the first master bathroom was added] was severely damaged by the 1965 flood, because when we purchased Estemere in 1998, the Master Bathroom was decorated in 1960s style with a green tub, green tile, Ed Hubbard cabinets, and linoleum on the floor. There was a 1960s Sears “Kitchenette” console in a small alcove off the bathroom which, we assume, was used by the Follmers when they lived in the “mother-in-law” wing. The small gas forced-air furnace just inside the bathroom door was quite loud in the wintertime. Thus, we did not feel that we were destroying anything original when we totally removed the bathroom and built a new, larger bathroom with two walk-in closets and a much needed laundry room. We included a full basement below for the furnace, on-demand water heater, and storage space. The only thing we kept from the 1998 bathroom was the marble vanity top with its porcelain Kohler lavatories and gold-plated Kohler faucets. We used the same tile, cherry trim, and “tin” ceiling as was used in the new Kitchen.
The new Master Bathroom with laundry room beyond.
The Second Floor
On the second floor, we completely repainted the trim, replaced the floors, and re-wallpapered the walls.
All of the five bedrooms on the second floor had walk-in closets (albeit quite small) and “fire-escape” chains—one tied one’s bed linens to the chains and lowered oneself down to the ground in case of fire. Four of these chains still remain.
The stairs from the main entry to the Second Floor and the Second Floor Hallway—2010.
The Second Floor Layout in 1998. This layout was probably unchanged from 1890 until 1998,
when the Dressing Room became a second bathroom.
ROOM
APPROXIMATE DIMENSIONS (FEET)
Master Bedroom
13 X 17
Dressing Room [now Bathroom 2]
8 X 10
Bedroom 1
13 X 13
Bedroom 2
12 X 13
Bedroom 3
12 X 13
Bedroom 4
11 X 16
Bathroom
5 X 9
The Original Master Bedroom
This room assuredly was Dr. Thompson’s Master Bedroom. The only structural change to the room was to place a wall and a door in the opening from the master to the small dressing room. This allowed us to construct a bathroom where the dressing room had been. After all, having five bedrooms and only one bathroom on one floor does not work in the 21st century!
The Master Bedroom in 1977. Photo by Duane Hanson.
The Original Master Bedroom in 2010.
[The balcony added by Leonard ca. 1965 is through the windows in the right-hand photo.]
The new Bathroom replaced the Dressing Room in 2000.
Bedrooms #1-4
The door seen in the photo below goes out onto a balcony. The colored glazing in the upper half of the windows in Bedroom #4 is original—in the 1893 front cover photograph those panes are in various shades of gray.
Bedroom #1 in 2010. The Bee Wallpaper was in this room.
Bedrooms #2 and #3 in 2010.
The only structural change in Bedroom #4 was to remove a wooden cabinet that had been built on the ledge in the center of the photo below.
Bedroom #4 in 2010. The small door accesses the attic above the Billiard Room. Original colored glazing in the upper half of the windows. Admiral Dewey’s bust is in the corner of the Billiard Room behind the small chest. A “fire escape” chain.
The Second Floor Bathroom
The second floor bathroom had been remodeled a few times. We believe that the west wall of the bathroom was added during the RMSS days to create a hallway to allow students access to the third-floor stairway and to provide privacy for the bathroom. When the wall was added, there was insufficient space to place a standard wall between the window in the hallway and the bathtub’s rim, so the 2X4 studs were oriented sideways and a slot was cut in the wall to accommodate the rim of the bathtub. The wall was also installed at a slight angle from the other walls. Our solution was to purchase a four-foot long claw-foot tub and properly reconstruct the wall.
An interesting anecdote: when Kim asked the carpenters what it would cost to remove the old wall, they replied that it would require a full man-day just to remove it. Kim was flabbergasted! She grabbed her power saber saw and said, “Stand back!” In ten minutes the wall was history. Then she told them, “That’s how you remove a wall!”
The cabinets in the bathroom were built by Ed Hubbard, the same carpenter who had built the old Kitchen cabinets and Master Bathroom cabinets. Kim had new cabinets for the old second floor bathroom built by Jeff Ward. She also installed a new pedestal sink and Kohler toilet and replaced the entire wall and floor tile.
Roger bought the three stained-glass windows in the bathroom wall on eBay—perhaps from an old English pub—that are now in the bathroom wall. They replaced three translucent glass panels that were in the old bathroom wall. During the RMSS, days the third floor was probably used for sleeping quarters. The transom above the stairway to the third floor was painted opaque green. This was to prevent anyone coming down the stairs from peering into the bathroom, prior to the bathroom wall being added! Lots of scraping and solvents were required to remove the paint.
The original Second Floor Bathroom in 1998.
The remodeled bathroom in 2010.
The Third Floor
The Third Floor Layout.
The Third Floor Sitting Room
The third floor contains the seventh fireplace. This firep
lace has very unusual 30 inch (76 cm) long tiles surrounding the firebox. There are swallows, owls, and bats depicted on the tiles. Several people have requested seeing this fireplace as they recall having visited Estemere 30 years ago and seeing the birds!
An 1880s Victorian Mansion in the Colorado Rockies: The Estemere Estate at Palmer Lake Page 26