Less than a decade after it was built, Redstone was almost completely abandoned. Many of its original houses and cottages were torn down or moved in later decades, even as Redstone itself revived slightly as an arts colony. The gamekeeper's cottage is one of the few outside the village that remain relatively unaltered. It continues to be used as a private residence.
Buildings and grounds
The lodge is on a 6-acre (2.4ha) complex[1] on the west side of Highway 133, approximately a mile (1.6km) south of the turnoff to Redstone, at an elevation of 7,280 feet (2,220m) above sea level. To the east, across the Crystal River, is Osgood Castle, the main building of the mining magnate's estate. On both sides of the valley steep wooded mountain slopes rise to alpine summits as high as 12,000 feet (3,700m) in White River and Gunnisonnational forests.[3]
Much of the neighboring land is undeveloped. To the south is a small subdivision along Chair Mountain Road. A quarter-mile (500 m) to the north is another subdivision. The land along the road is open, giving way to forest further back. There is no development between the highway and the river.[4]
An unpaved driveway leads into the property from the road. There are three buildings around its end. The original gamekeeper's lodge is to the north, its carriage house to the west and a modern building to the south. All are sheltered by mature trees, predominantly a mixture of aspen and pine.[4]
The lodge building is a one-and-a-half-story timber frame house sided with wooden shingles stained dark brown. It is topped by a clipped-gable roof with broad overhanging eaves pierced by two chimneys near the center. The lower story has a full-length porch on the south (front) facade, complemented by a balcony above it.[2]
Both the porch and the balcony have full-length saw-cut wooden balustrades. Two large white brackets support the balcony on either side of the main entrance. Next to them on either side are triple six-over-three double-hung sash windows. The main entrance itself has a white paneled wooden door with six-pane window.[5]
Above the brackets two turned spindles rise to the roof. The plainer door to the balcony is flanked by four-over-two double-hung sash. On the east and west elevations, plain brackets support the roof.[5]
The carriage house is similar but more restrained. Its eaves are lower, supported by smaller brackets, with the roof pierced by a large shed dormer on the south side. Entrances are located on the sides, with three modern bay windows between them. The east facade has a similar but shorter balustrade along its balcony.[1]
History
John C. Osgood came to Colorado in 1882 to survey the new state's coal resources for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. He soon established the Colorado Fuel Company to supply it and other railroads with coal mined, initially, by others. His goal was to open mines in the remote Crystal Valley, where he had found high-quality coal suitable for coking during his surveys.[6]
He began buying land in the valley, primarily for the company but also with an eye toward creating an estate for himself. Central to that latter concept was a hunting lodge and game preserves. In 1892 he merged his company with the rival Colorado Coal and Iron Company to form Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I), which soon became one of the largest mining concerns in the state and indeed the entire West.[7]
Despite this economic prowess, CF&I was unable to develop the Crystal Valley at first. In the wake of the Panic of 1893, which hit Colorado's mining sector very hard, banks were unwilling to lend the money to build the necessary railroad connection until the closing years of the century. After that was finished, Osgood began implementing his plans.[7]
Influenced by the writings of Andrew Jackson Downing earlier in the century, which had led to the Carpenter Gothic movement and other early Victorianstyles that tried to harmonize country houses with their natural setting, Boal built primarily in the Tudor Revival and Swiss Chalet styles, the latter of which finds one of its fullest expressions in Redstone in the gamekeeper's cottage.[7]
Both were well-suited to the mountainous surroundings, and Boal adapted them even further to that end. The building's design elements serve both aesthetic and functional purposes. For example, the shingles are as durable as they are rustic and picturesque, per Downing's recommendations. The balcony is not only an element of many actual Swiss chalets, but allowed the gamekeeper to survey the animals in the winter enclosure that would have been before him.[5]
In addition to Osgood's hunting lodge, which eventually became his Cleveholm mansion, Boal designed small cottages for the workers and a dormitory for unmarried miners that is today the Redstone Inn, in the same styles. In addition to being high-quality workmanship, in contrast to the makeshift shacks and cabins that dominated most mining camps of the era, the cottages and dormitory had amenities such as electricity and running water that were considered luxuries at the time by any standard.[7]
For several years Osgood enjoyed the life he had envisioned for himself two decades before. He made daily rounds in the streets of Redstone to hear from his employees how things were going and resolve their complaints. Both he and his Swedish-born wife Alma, an avid outdoorswoman, took advantage of the ample game on the preserves. Their guests, who frequently accompanied them on their hunting expeditions, included John D. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt and King Leopold II of Belgium.[8]
In 1903, interests connected to the Rockefeller family took control of CF&I. Osgood became less involved in the company and a less frequent presence in the valley he had developed. Six years later, CF&I's completion of a new coke plant and economic shifts made Redstone's mines unprofitable, and the town was nearly abandoned within days.[7]
Osgood shut down the estate and game preserves in 1913, leaving the few remaining residents to take care of them. The next year the bitter strike that culminated in the Ludlow massacre demonstrated the unsustainability of the paternalist philosophy that had motivated him to build Redstone. In the mid-1920s he returned to the Crystal Valley, terminally ill. After his death in 1926, his ashes were scattered over the valley per his wish. His widow Lucille tried to redevelop the estate into a resort, but its remoteness and the onset of the Great Depression frustrated those hopes.[7]
Lucille was forced to sell the property in increments to survive. Some of the original buildings, such as the greenhouses, were moved; others were demolished. The gamekeeper's cottage remained, even after she sold the main estate house itself in the early 1940s.[7] By 1949 the barn had been converted for resort use and cottages were built on the neighboring property.[5]
In the 1950s a small log wing was added at the northwest corner. It was joined by a gallery on the lower front in the 1960s. That work also put in new side joists and a concrete foundation. The resort failed, and the house was vacant until 1965, when it reverted to use as a home.[5]
Since then Redstone has experienced a slight revival. The gamekeeper's cottage remains largely unaltered other than the work done in the middle of the 20th century. Its current occupants have remodeled the carriage house and rent it out as overnight lodgings.[1]
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892. By 1903 it was mainly owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs. While it came to control many plants throughout the country, its main plant was a steel mill on the south side of Pueblo, Colorado and was the city's main industry for most of its history. From 1901 to 1912, Colorado Fuel and Iron was one of the Dow Jones Industrials. The steel-market crash of 1982 led to the decline of the company. After going through several bankruptcies, the company was acquired by Oregon Steel Mills in 1993, and changed its name to Rocky Mountain Steel Mills. In January 2007, Rocky Mountain Steel Mills, along with the rest of Oregon Steel's holdings, were acquired by EVRAZ Group, a Russian steel corporation, for $2.3 billion.
The Lake McDonald Lodge is a historic lodge located within Glacier National Park, on the southeast shore of Lake McDonald. The lodge is a 3+1⁄2-story structure built in 1913 based on Kirtland Cutter's design. The foundation and first floor walls are built of stone, with a wood-frame superstructure. The lobby is a large, open space that extends to the third story. It has a massive fireplace and a concrete floor scored in a flagstone pattern, with messages in several Indian languages inscribed into it. The rustic lodge was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 as one of the nation's finest examples of large-scale Swiss chalet architecture. Lake McDonald Lodge is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
Swiss chalet style is an architectural style of Late Historicism, originally inspired by rural chalets in Switzerland and the Alpine (mountainous) regions of Central Europe. The style refers to traditional building designs characterised by widely projecting roofs and facades richly decorated with wooden balconies and carved ornaments. It spread over Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, France and Scandinavia during the Belle Époque era.
Redstone is an unincorporated town and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Glenwood Springs, CO Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population of the Redstone CDP was 127 at the United States Census 2020. The Carbondale post office (Zip Code 81623) serves Redstone postal addresses.
Montgomery Place, now Bard College: The Montgomery Place Campus, near Barrytown, New York, United States, is an early 19th-century estate that has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Hudson River Historic District, itself a National Historic Landmark. It is a Federal-style house, with expansion designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis. It reflects the tastes of a younger, post-Revolutionary generation of wealthy landowners in the Livingston family who were beginning to be influenced by French trends in home design, moving beyond the strictly English models exemplified by Clermont Manor a short distance up the Hudson River. It is the only Hudson Valley estate house from this era that survives intact, and Davis's only surviving neoclassical country house.
Dunmere is a historic estate at 560 Ocean Road in Narragansett, Rhode Island.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Pitkin County, Colorado.
The Redstone Coke Oven Historic District is located at the intersection of State Highway 133 and Chair Mountain Stables Road outside Redstone, Colorado, United States. It consists of the remaining coke ovens built at the end of the 19th century by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. In 1990, it was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Redstone Historic District is located in and near the unincorporated community of that name in western Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. It includes the original community of Redstone as built by Colorado Fuel and Iron (CFI) for the coal miners it employed. In 1989 it was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Redstone Inn is located on Redstone Boulevard in Redstone, Colorado, United States. It is a structure in the Tudor Revival architectural styles built at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1980 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also a contributing property to the Redstone Historic District listed on the register nine years later.
John Cleveland Osgood was a self-made man who founded the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and Victor-American Fuel Company but has been referred to as a robber baron. He also created Redstone, Colorado.
The Osgood–Kuhnhausen House, also known as Carina's Cottage, is located on Redstone Boulevard in Redstone, Colorado, United States. It is a timber frame structure built at the beginning of the 20th century in the Tudor Revival architectural style. In 1983 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Redstone Castle, also known as Cleveholm or Osgood Castle, is a mansion south of Redstone, Colorado, United States. It is a large timber frame structure built in the early 20th century as the home of John C. Osgood, founder of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in a simplified version of the Stick style. In 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, the first property in Pitkin County to be listed. It was later additionally listed as a contributing property to the Redstone Historic District.
The Colorado Coalfield War was a major labor uprising in the Southern and Central Colorado Front Range between September 1913 and December 1914. Striking began in late summer 1913, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) after years of deadly working conditions and low pay. The strike was marred by targeted and indiscriminate attacks from both strikers and individuals hired by CF&I to defend its property. Fighting was focused in the southern coal-mining counties of Las Animas and Huerfano, where the Colorado and Southern railroad passed through Trinidad and Walsenburg. It followed the 1912 Northern Colorado Coalfield Strikes.
Redstone Castle or Crawford House is a historic building in Manitou Springs, located within the Manitou Springs Historic District.
Boal and Harnois was an architectural firm active from 1901 until 1907 in Colorado. Theodore Davis Boal (1867-1938) and Frederick Louis Harnois (1872-1921) were its partners. The firm created the Ferguson-Gano House (1897), the Grant-Humphreys Mansion (1902), other buildings located in Denver, and Osgood Castle (1903) in Redstone.
Theodore Davis Boal, also known as Terry Boal, was an American army officer and architect. He entered into several partnerships over his career, the Boal and Harnois architectural firm in Denver, Colorado and a partnership with Ward Brown in Washington D.C. He designed a number of important mansions that are listed with the National Register of Historic Places. One of his important works, also an NRHP property, is the ancestral family estate, Boal Mansion.
Victor-American Fuel Company, also styled as the Victor Fuel Company, was a coal mining company, primarily focused on operations in the US states of Colorado and New Mexico during the first half of the Twentieth Century. Prior to a 1909 reorganization, the business was known as the American Fuel Company.
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