funding for "House With a History" has been provided by the department of cultural affairs, the Nevada state historical preservation office through a department of interior grant.

Major funding was provided by Wells Fargo home mortgage.

Wells Fargo is proud to be part of the northern Nevada community for over 150 years.

Wells Fargo, the next stage.

Additional funding has been granted by the city of Reno arts and culture commission.

♪ MUSIC >> Hello, I'm Marla Carr.

Welcome to "House With a History".

The Bick Barbara Belnap house is house of lawyers and judges.

since its construction in 1875, one prominent attorney after another has chosen to live in the second empire home with its distinctive Mansard roof.

The present-day owners have carried on that tradition.

We'll be introduced to the bell nap house by patty and Peter Smith.

As you'll see, the comfortable country house has wonderful appeal For attorneys, judges, just about anyone.

♪ >> Hi, Peter.

>> how are you?

>> Hi, Patty.

I'm doing well.

What a wonderful house.

It's so distinctive, just beautiful.

>> thanks, why don't you come on in.

>> Okay.

>> Yes, please do.

>> before moving into the house, our attention is caught by a small garden tucked into a space at the side of the house.

>> What a lovely garden.

Now, Peter, was this actually original to the house when you moved in?

Was it like this?

>> Well, it was has been neglected for 30 or 40 years, but there's a lot of more or less Native things or things that went Native and we put a sprinkler system in, which contributed a lot to the greenery.

>> is this called a free-form garden?

>> Well, I call it severely naturalized.

It is sort of a polite word for a garden that's left to its own for a very long time.

So when we got it, the lawns had been mowed and there had been some trimmings of the flower bed but the trees and bushes had been allowed to grow without any control.

>> Though Peter has tried to expert some control over what grows in his garden, one would still not call it structured.

The effect is charming.

>> It's great walkway, did you put that in also?

>> Well no, that was a surprise.

I was cleaning up the yard and digging down because I thought we ought to have a walkway here and I found this brick walk that goes all the way around to the back of the house.

>> we can step back a bit from the house and see the details that characterize its style.

>> Christy Faukler offers some insight.

>> The roof line is a Mansard roof, which is a definitive character defining feature of the second empire style.

It is basically a dual pitched roof, there are two slopes to the roof line.

The steeper pitch, which is the one that's most visible from street level, or, you know, people passing by, typically is adorned with dormers.

>> The roof line actually gives the house an additional floor.

An attic.

The popularity of the Mansard roof is strongest from 1860 to 1880.

And may be due in part to the availability of extra storage space.

>> it's a simplistic Mansard roof, has kind of a concave arched shape on to it.

The dormer windows have a really nice arched hood over the top of them, which carries that sort of curvy line to the roof line.

Even though it's slight.

The porch also has a slight arch way over it which again is sort of carrying that arched way to it.

There's also square brackets under the eaves of the roof line, which I also think carry that same rectangular shape around the whole house.

One nice feature that I thought that I haven't seen in some of the houses that I've seen of this style, are the dentils, the dentil molding around the edges, under the roof line.

>> The dentil molding is a squared off molding that is around the cornice end of under the roof line.

Looks almost like little teeth.

The Belknap house sat empty for some time it prior to its rescue by Peter and Patty.

they had to deal with structural, electrical curiosities and enormous amount of dust and dirt.

Curious as to how Patty and Peter made the decision to purchase the Belknap house, I asked each one their version of the story.

>> my wife and I had gotten married and she said I should go find a house we could live in.

>> He likes older homes.

He likes the features of them.

>> and I could just pick anything I wanted, but just so long as it wasn't something we had to fix up.

And so I disobeyed her essentially -- >> Peter wanted to find an older house to redo.

Something that would give him a challenge.

>> I thought this had a lot more character than anything that's built contemporarily, you know, any modern house.

>> I wasn't so much an old house person until he brought me over.

>> My wife had just finished getting a degree in English literature and she was-- Jane Austen, 18th century, and I thought it would be a good mix.

>> I fell in love with the yard first.

>> It was just the beginning of spring and I think it probably helped with my wife when I first brought her over, because there's probably a thousand tulips, all blooming at once.

>> it was the yard that really set it for me.

>> I took her over and the tulips were blooming and had a great big yard and she fell for it.

>> from the porch we step into a compact entryway with a staircase to the second floor.

>> The front staircase, we think was from a kit.

A Carpenter told us that.

He said it's not a grand staircase.

But it's nice, Victorian style and they probably bought it as a kit and installed it.

The only interesting, I think unique feature about the hallway is the crust that goes up the wainscoting and that's an early linoleum product that as far as I understand, it's a linseed oil and wood pulp pressed down on a mold.

So that is original to the home.

This is the only staircase.

Technically, for a house to be designated a mansion, it must have two, a front and back, or servant's staircase.

The Belknap house is considered a large country home.

Perhaps one might even call it a farm house.

Second empire houses can be quite large structures.

The Belknap house is a small version of the style.

>> This is the living room, or the parlor historically.

>> It's beautiful.

>> Thank you.

>> I love the colors and all the white molding.

>> well, the colors of course are more modern.

They're not probably the colors any of the Victorians would have chosen.

they liked a lot of pinks, which we did do the front rooms the first go-around but we recently crowned the rooms, and we put in the paper on the ten and a half foot ceilings.

And most of the home does, downstairs does have the high ceilings except for one.

The molding you see in the home around the windows and doors was original to the home.

We don't know too much about it, except we've always assumed that doors and molding must have been inexpensive at the time because it's everywhere.

And although in the front rooms it's a little more ornate than in the other rooms.

We added the crown molding because we thought it was a shame that they hadn't crowned any of the rooms and we're not sure why.

But they just didn't.

As far as we can tell, during the renovations, we had no indication that there had ever been a crown.

>> I love the flooring.

Now, what kind of wood is this?

>> It's Douglas fir.

They didn't have a lot of hardwoods out here, and they cut down a lot of the forests for the mining.

We've been concerned that maybe there would be boot marks and things on it.

when we finally peeled back the carpets, it was unfinished Douglas fir and it had never been walked on.

What we learned was the house had always had wall to wall carpeting, right from the 18 70s, which we think, as far as we've been able to find out is very unusual.

In fact, if you look at the moldings in the house, you'll see they're all cut about half inch, three quarters inch above the floor.

And that's because they had the carpeting and the padding.

So we were able to have it refinished and it was-- it turned out well.

>> the windows are a definite character defining feature of the second empire style.

Typically they're more of like an octagonal or curve bay, the octagonal bay windows in this house are I would say slightly unique.

>> when she purchased the house, Patty chose to remove the heavy draperies and allow light to fill the space.

The window glass is original to the house, wavy and imperfect, the imperfections become a work of art.

Though the Smiths have been brought under the spell of the Belknap house, Patty really had no desire to be transported back to the 1800s.

Her furnishings are comfortable and contemporary.

She followed tradition somewhat by initially choosing rosy colors that were popular in the Victorian period.

She made that concession but would not hang the even more traditional wallpaper.

After living with the house for a while, she chose colors that were personal preference.

>> I decided that no, I had always wanted the darker colors and I started seeing that more in other homes.

We had painted the family room the hunter green right at first.

And just year ago, year and a half ago we redid the dining room and living room.

To the colors you see now.

We did have some indication with early wallpaper that some of the colors we have in the home today were taken from that wallpaper.

But it wasn't anything we really planned.

>> the interior is fabulous.

Obviously, I think it's very indicative of what potentially could have been here during that time period.

Very rich colors, although that-- that day and age would have been the Victorian era so there would have been wallpaper on the walls.

>> In the living room, a framed black-and-white photo shows the property not long after the house was completed.

In the 1870s, much of Virginia city had burned to the ground, the silver strike had played out, and Carson City was feeling the impact of lost revenue and of people moving on.

Belknap house was built as the end of an era approached.

>> Samuel Wright was a state district judge who lived next door and he owned the entire block.

He sold a half of the block to Henry Hudson Beck in 1875, and Beck started building the home.

>> Henry HUDson Beck was a member of the territorial legislature and then went on to serve in the first state assembly legislature.

He didn't live in the house long, if at all.

Actually, it may have been what we know today as a spec house.

>> Beck sold the property to John Cottrell.

One of the first attorney generals.

For whatever reason Cottrell sold the house back to Beck 6 months later, taking a thousand dollar loss on his investment.

Beck's next buyer was Oscar T. barber, also a member of the state assemblymen from the wealthy highly populated mining districts were elected for state office and came to reside at least part time in the capital.

>> it seemed like Virginia city was a really prosperous town at the time.

And Carson City had the government.

So a lot of people who were elected to the legislature wanted homes to live in while they were here for their terms.

And they had the functioning B&T railroad, a commuter train which ran to Carson City and Virginia city.

They would go back and forth and buy homes here for the legislative season.

>> though the house changed hands frequently in its early years, things finally settled into place with the arrival of the Belknaps.

>> the most long time prominent residents were the Belknaps.

And Charles Henry Belknap was the private secretary to governor Bradley in the 1870s.

He had been a lawyer and a mayor of Virginia city.

Came to Carson to work for governor Bradley.

Bradley appointed him to a chair on the Nevada Supreme Court to finish off a retiring justice's term.

And a year later he married one of governor Bradley's daughters.

And then they, after their marriage, which was quite a social event, according to the Nevada histories, and they were married in the then-governor's mansion, they moved into this home.

And they raised their 4 children here.

>> from the living room, the dining room invites us to enter.

The white woodwork stands out against the deep red of the walls, the bay window is mimicked in this room, like the living room the ceilings are nearly 10feet high.

Replicas of period gas lamps are used throughout the house.

To our right we see an office which was originally the master bedroom.

A small laundry room attached to the office is thought to have been the original kitchen.

Addition was added to the house sometime between 1890 and 1900.

>> We were first told it was around 1890, but now we're thinking it was right around the turn of the century.

About 1900, but we're not really sure.

They did use square nails in it, so if that dates something.

>> this space is now used as a family room.

A fire in the roof in the early 1950s resulted in the ceiling being lowered to the traditional 8-foot height.

Though there is a fireplace in this room, it was probably not original to the house.

Small wood burning stoves were used in each room.

Populate stoves that were more efficient than fireplaces.

Proceeding down the hallway we find a charming guest bath and the kitchen.

>> this is the kitchen, one of my favorite rooms of the house, and I think mainly because we spend more time here than anywhere else.

>> I can see why it's one of your favorites.

In many of the older homes they've redone the kitchen and it looks like a totally different room from the house because it's been modernized with granite countertops but you've managed to keep the charm of the kitchen but it looks very functional.

>> It's very functional.

It's pretty much what would you call a farm house kitchen.

And we've kept that with some of the furnishings.

And the cabinetwork here, that we think was put in around the '30s from a mill work in Reno.

One of the unique features about it is the tongue and groove walls and ceilings are all clearcut redwood.

Which is very unusual.

Apparently it's been always painted, and we will leave it that way because it would be very dark.

>> across from the kitchen area is a small room which Patty uses as a guest room.

But this unassuming space has an interesting story of its own.

>> George bought the house in 1948 and he was a very avid civil defense short wave radio person, and he built this 80-foot radio antenna, what is now our guest room was his radio room.

When we moved in, the radio room was filled with glass transistors and big cables and bird nests and it was nature.

>> This is built with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it provided a short wavelength for people to come and talk to their sons and daughters in the armed forces.

>> a lot of people came over and used the radio to contact their loved ones in Vietnam.

And not just in Saigon, but right in the battlefields.

It was a huge radio antenna.

>> it was a really good short wave system so he could point the short wave into a foxhole in Vietnam and talk direct.

He was quite pleased with that and he had people coming from-- school kids coming over, and husbands and wives of service people.

Coming over and talking to their loved ones.

Before e-mail.

>> the radio room is tucked up against the back porch.

The porch is where Patty and Peter eat at least 6 months of the year.

It's easy to understand why.

From here we can view this backyard.

A private area in which one can relax comfortably.

Peter relishes relating several stories about the grounds.

>> there was four plum trees here just about 25feet behind the kitchen when we came in.

They're tall old ugly things and they're just in a straight row.

And we figured out that before there was a toilet in the house, there had to be an outhouse and when there's an outhouse, the outhouse would fill up.

They would dig a hole right next to it, pull the outhouse over so there would be a new outhouse and put a tree why where the old outhouse was.

>> now that he's begun, he takes us on the tour.

>> oh, Peter, this is an absolutely wonderful tree.

Looks like a Dr. Seuss character.

>> well, it's got to be at least 100 years old.

These apple trees that you see here are bigger and uglier and older than anything in Carson City, as far as apple trees, as far as anything I've ever seen.

If you knock on them, they're completely hollow.

Maybe an inch of wood and the Carpenter ants have eaten the insides out.

Completely.

But they're still alive and quaint looking I guess is what you call them.

We're planting new trees because they're not going to last forever.

>> The ivy-covered concrete building at the south side of the property may look picturesque but in reality it's another of his attempts to defend against the Cold War.

>> The bomb shelter is kind of a funny thing.

It was built in 1962, which was just sort of at the end of the Cold War, but around the Cuban missile crisis.

>> There's an above-ground bomb shelter, very Cold War era.

Has 36-inch thick walls.

That are really two, 6-inch concrete walls filled with 18inches of rubble.

Yeah, squatty thing.

Now covered with ivy so it actually looks pretty good outside.

The Nevada appeal did a nice article when it was inaugurated and Mrs.Kritzer cutting the ribbon to the door.

>> It was built by a company for free as just a demonstration project so that everybody who wanted to have a bomb shelter could see what they looked like and then decide to buy one.

And nobody bought one.

The bomb shelter either reflects the paranoia about nuclear war that was present in the '60s or reflects the total lack of paranoia, because nobody was interested in actually buying one.

>> You know, it's a lovely bomb shelter, I have to say almost a work of art.

The Buddha, framed mirrors and painted in a nice color of red and then of course another one of your lovely gnarly old apple trees.

This is a beautiful space.

>> If you look closely, you'll see there's a Olivetree growing out of the top.

Growing wild, Russian olive, I don't know how it got there, cutesy, olive trees growing out of bomb shelters.

>> Patty has the unique if somewhat bizarre idea of renovating the structure into a guest house.

As Peter puts it, a little mother-in-law bomb shelter.

>> The little desk used as an outdoor ornament came from a schoolhouse that Patty's mother attended in the 1930s.

The fireplace is used, though the local fire department keeps an eye out to make certain it's used responsibly.

The spit that Patty's uncle designed is perfect for cooking a lamb.

the garage is cinder block and built sometime in the 1950s but Peter tells a tale that has survived from the 1930s.

>> Going well back into the 1800s, there was a lot of Chinese population in Carson City, you know, from left over from the mines and the railroads.

And one of our neighbors heard gilly, he grew up in the neighborhood can and told me how there used to be a Chinaman that lived in the shed back here and a fellow that did chores and hauled firewood and did the laundry and he specifically remembers the Chinaman because he and another boy when they were 4 years old came run through the backyard with sticks and knocked the tops off opium poppies when they were ripe and a Chinaman came boiling out and chased them and grabbed them and beat them with their own sticks.

Which is important.

If you ever want a little boy to remember something, grab them and smack them with a stick and it stays in their mind.

So I'm quite certain the story he's telling me is true.

That's another part.

And another slice of life here.

>> The Belknap house with its large and close garden, is a small Carson City gem.

Not a mansion, it's an easy house, relaxed, with touches of architectural interest.

And I concur with Christy's final comment.

>> I would love to live here.

>> For movie buffs, the Mansard roof line.

Second empire style might be uncomfortably familiar.

Think back to Alfred Hitchcock's film psycho.

Remember the house on the hill.

The one in which Norman lived with his mother.

Second empire.

The architectural style is perfect for haunting.

The attic space, so convenient for the family to store generations of castoff is also an excellent space to house their ghosts.

If you'd like to know more about the Beck Belknap house or any of the houses in our series go to our website, KNPB.org.

Until the next time, preserve the architecture and enjoy the heritage of your community.

♪ principal production funding for house with a history has been provided by the department of cultural affairs, Nevada state historic preservation office, through a department of interior grant.

Major funding was provided by Wells Fargo, home mortgage.

Wells Fargo is proud to be part of the northern Nevada community for over 150 years.

Wells Fargo, the next stage.

Additional funding has been granted by the city of Reno arts and culuture commission.