The Gardner House - Est 1882 by Edward Gardner

Edward Gardner

1910 Census Information

VB Brand

Mark Bouton

• Arrived in 1873
• Met future wife Virginia in Denver & brought her to Bear Creek
• VB Brand - Virginia Bouton
• Suspected of killing Minnie Montgomery in Cheyenne, thinking it was his wife, whom he suspected of cheating on him.

Eventually sold his land to Seabury and Gardner, and Edward Gardner built his house on the former VB ranch.

Jim Griffin

Jim Griffin's Home

Jim Griffin Home

Bear Creek

What Remains Today

Phillips?

Jim's Girls

Jim's Family

Jim's Grandkids

Curt Griffin

Curt's First Home?

According to a research paper written by Amy Green, from LaGrange, in 1977:

Curtis and his family lived in a log cabin which still stands about 100 yards from the Griffin House. This cabin is the oldest building on Bear Creek.

Relative Features

Eventually, Curt moved in

Sophisticated Water System

The house had indoor plumbing with pressurized running water.

Spring water was surge fed via a simple siphon to a ram pump that used the energy of the falling water to pump a fraction of it into a cistern high on the west hill. That cistern was then connected via buried pipe to a cistern on the hill north of the house, and that cistern was piped to the house to deliver gravity pressurized water.

Spring

Former Ram Pump Location

Cistern

Cistern

Spring water was routed through the yard, into a stone lined channel that took it across the yard and then allowed it to drain on the far side, where, originally, it ran back down into the creek from that side. The (indoor) bathroom drained into this channel.

Main Floor Layout

(not to scale)

Dimensions are approximately 30' x 40' in front, and 24' x 40' in back

Stone, stone, and more stone

Built from locally quarried stone

In the front part, walls are approximately 18" thick.

In the back, walls are approximately 12" thick.

Quarry location?

Stone Source?

Perhaps sources from surface deposits along the exposed ridge?

Main Hall & Staircase

According to the Amy Green research paper:

In building the Griffin House, Gardner imported masons,
along with a hardwood stair rail from England, which arrived either
too small or damaged. He sent for a second one and it is still in the
Griffin House today.

Whether imported from England or not, who knows? We've also been told that the actual problem with the first staircase was that it turned the wrong direction.

The Hi Kelly house, near Chugwater, was being built in the same timeframe. Before that house was demolished, the staircase in it was salvaged, and is in the Baptist Church in Chugwater now. It looks rather familiar. It just turns in the opposite direction.
 

Living Room

The decorative detail towards the top of the walls are hand painted. That, however, is not the original color of the room. Underneath that coat of paint is a soft baby blue that was the original color of the room.

The fireplace is a shallow Rumsford style design to improve heating ability. Notice the red bricks on the outside, however. They aren't real. They were painted to look like external brick work on what is actually a solid surface.

In the kitchen, looking into the dining room. At some point the wainscoting on the walls was painted, as were the door frames. The door frames were originally plain wood with a varnish on it, however, and the paint used was not compatible with the varnish underneath, so as it dried over the decades, it has crinkled and detached from the layer underneath it.

Front Mortar Detail

Stones of the house are cemented with a lime based mortar.

Joints are raised, and are sometimes faked for appearance's sake on the front of the house.

Contrast to the joints on the sides of the house. Less uniform stone sizes, and no raised bead.

Slowly doing some mortar repointing and repair.

Some experimentation.

Modern lime mortars are very white. Dye to match

Dad likes red. Can raised joint be reasonably reproduced, in red?

Has weathered for 13 years quite well.

Current Problems

Break-ins and Vandalism ​