|
The
Piper-Beebe House
Photo by Rebecca Ossa,
Courtesy of Nevada State Historic Preservation Office |
The Piper-Beebe House is a large two-story Italianate residence constructed
in 1876 by pioneer Virginia City architect-builder, A. F. Mackay. Mackay
designed and built several buildings in Virginia City, but the Piper-Beebe
House is the only one that remains. Built after the Great Fire of 1875,
this house is representative of the elaborate homes built for mine superintendents
and wealthy businessmen. The Italianate style found strong favor following
the fire, as Virginia City sought to rebuild and present itself in a grand
fashion. The Italianate style, exemplified by a vertical design orientation,
heavy cornice brackets and elaborate turned wooden decorative treatments,
was the height of fashion on the west coast during the 1870s and the Piper-Beebe
house would feel quite at home on a fashionable Victorian street in San
Francisco.
Side view of Piper-Beebe House, the
only A. F. Mackay building left in Virginia City
Photo by Rebecca Ossa, courtesy of Nevada State Historic Preservation
Office |
|
The home was occupied by Mackay and his family until the mid-1880s. It
was later owned by Edward Piper, operator of the nearby Piper's Opera
House and son of its founder John Piper. After Edward
Piper's death in 1907, his widow Lavinia married Dan Connors, a bare-fisted
prizefighter who came to Nevada as a sportswriter in 1897 to cover the
famous Fitzsimmons-Corbett fight which took place in Carson City. After
his marriage to Lavinia, Connors took over the management of the opera
house, and in 1911 he introduced silent films to Virginia City. In 1949,
the house was purchased by Charles Clegg and Lucius Beebe, revivers of
the Territorial Enterprise, the original
newspaper of the Comstock. Beebe and Clegg were two of the leading figures
in the artistic community that established itself in Virginia City during
the Second World War. Together they operated the Enterprise as
a weekly paper and published numerous books on the Comstock and railroad
history.
The Piper-Beebe House is located at 2 South A St. in Virginia City.
It is privately owned and not open to the public.
|