All Stories: 193
Stories
Reno City Hall (former)
As 1960 approached, the city of Reno was reckoning with its rapid growth and the accompanying need for a new city government facility. Since 1907, Reno’s City Hall had stood on the southwest corner of Center and First (originally known as Front)…
Santa Fe Hotel
The two-story solid brick building that stands today at 235 Lake Street is not the original Santa Fe Hotel, although it is located on the same site. The building housing the first Santa Fe was constructed there in 1913 for a man named A.J. Clark,…
Osen House
The Osen family became involved in the automobile trade at an early point. Based in Northern California, the Osen-McFarland Auto Company opened a branch in Reno in 1915, opening a sales room and service station on Commercial Row. In 1921, George A.…
Edward Chism House
The Tudor Revival home at 575 Ridge Street was designed by architect Frederic DeLongchamps and built in 1927. It was the residence of Edward and Clara Chism, who were married in Reno in 1915. Edward Chism was a Washoe County native born on the…
Benham House
Architect Frederic DeLongchamps designed this home, which was constructed in 1930 for Guy and Emeline Benham. The couple met in Reno, but were not native to the area.
Born on a farm near Cedar Falls, Iowa, Guy Everett Benham moved to Reno in…
Donnels House
This home was designed by Frederic DeLongchamps and built for Albert T. Donnels around 1917. Albert Donnels had been a Reno resident since 1896. He was born in Jamestown, California. As a young man in his early twenties he went to San Francisco;…
Day/Creveling House
The brick bungalow at 571 Ridge Street was built in 1919 for Forrest W. Eccles, who moved here with his wife, Bessie, and their infant son, Forrest Kelly Eccles. The house was next door to the home of Eccles’ stepfather and mother, William and Emma…
Grimmon House (site)
What is now a vacant lot at 543 Court Street was once a beautiful residence overlooking the river. Its story began in 1906, when Robert Grimmon purchased five acres from Senator Francis G. Newlands, just east of the Newlands House. The large tract…
E.C. Lyon Building
For years, a Chinese laundry stood at the corner of Center and Second Streets. Once considered well away from the town’s business district, the site became increasingly desirable in the first decade of the twentieth century, as the mining booms in…
Ginsburg House
The home at 543 Ridge Street was designed by celebrated Nevada architect Frederic DeLongchamps and built for Harry and Anna Ginsburg in 1927. The Ginsburgs had moved to Reno in 1915 from Northern California, where Harry Ginsburg had owned a jewelry…
Simmons House
The house at 235 Lee Avenue shares a history (and a garage) with the house built directly behind it. This one, on the corner of Lee and Ridge, was originally the home of William and Emma Simmons. Mr. Simmons was a prominent Reno businessman, and he…
Eccles House
Forrest W. Eccles commissioned prominent Nevada architect Frederic DeLongchamps to design his new residence at 245 Lee Avenue in 1930. He and his family had previously lived a stone’s throw away, at 571 Ridge Street, in a house identified here as…
Roy House
The house at 491 Court Street was built for Roland F. Roy in 1907, the same year that the nearby Nixon Mansion was completed. Newlands Heights was the most exclusive neighborhood in town, a testament to the affluence and prominence of its…
Reid House
In 1901 Hosea Reid became one of the founders of the Gray, Reid & Company dry goods store, along with partner Joseph Gray, whose house is located at 457 Court Street. Their store was originally located at the corner of Second and Virginia…
Frederic DeLongchamps Cottage
Frederic DeLongchamps, Reno’s most famous and prolific architect, designed this enchanting house in 1919. It is an example of the English Country Cottage, or Tudor Revival style popular throughout the Newlands Heights neighborhood.
The house is…
Francis G. Newlands Office
In 1890-91, soon after constructing his impressive residence on the bluff overlooking the Truckee River, Francis G. Newlands had a smaller house built on his estate to serve as his personal office. The second building, like the first (see separate…
Hawkins House
Attorney Prince Albert Hawkins purchased this plum piece of property from Senator Francis G. Newlands in 1912 and hired architect Elmer Gray of Los Angeles to design his grand family residence at 549 Court Street. Gray also designed and built the…
Gosse House
The house at 465 Court Street was originally the home of Harry “Pop” Gosse, a Nevada resident for more than 80 years who was perhaps best known as the owner of one version of the famous Riverside Hotel, located on the south bank of the Truckee River…
West/Hood House
This residence has been referred to as the “medical mansion”; two physicians owned it, but not in succession. The original building was a large, garage-like structure situated on the Nixon estate overlooking the Truckee River. The structure and…
Johnston House
This chateau, sometimes referred to as “The Castle,” began as a guest house owned by Janet Sharon Newlands Johnston. Johnston was perhaps the closest thing to Nevada royalty, as the granddaughter of U.S. Senator William Sharon and the second of…
St. Albans Hotel
The St. Albans Hotel opened in the spring of 1908 at what is now 380 N. Virginia Street. At the time, it was situated at the far northern end of Reno’s business district, which was concentrated south of the railroad tracks. Initially surrounded to…
Muller House
Mary Ruth “Maisie” Kinder was born and raised in Pennsylvania; as a youngster she had the opportunity to go to London to live with her aunt. There she began acting, singing, and dancing. After working as an understudy, she was selected for roles…
Steinmiller/Parsons House
According to George Steinmiller’s granddaughter Alice Parsons, “He wanted to be a big fish in a little pond. That is why he came to Reno from Sacramento.” George Steinmiller practiced dentistry in Reno for fifty years. He and his wife Alice…
Dexter/McLaughlin House
Architect Edward Parsons, who lived next door at 761 California Avenue, designed the estate at 775 California, modeling the residence after George Washington’s Mount Vernon Home. His client was Irving Briggs Dexter, a Philippine mahogany lumber…
Gray House
This house was the residence of Joseph H. Gray, Jr., said to have been the first white child born in Truckee, California. The year was 1868, five years after his father, Joseph H. Gray, Sr., a lumber mill operator, had constructed the first cabin in…
Price House
This was the longtime home and law office of attorney Robert M. Price, who moved to Reno with his wife, Jennie, in 1904. Practicing first with the firm of Cheney, Massey, and Smith, Price quickly became an active member of the community. He was a…
Payne House
Esteemed Reno architect Edward Parsons designed the house at 745 California Avenue in 1941 for Frank R. Payne and his new wife, Hazel. Mr. Payne was a retired executive for the J.C. Penney organization who had moved to Reno with his first wife,…
George S. Nixon Mansion
This impressive Newlands Heights home was finished in 1907 as a statement piece for U.S. Senator George S. Nixon, who was elected in 1905 by the Nevada State Legislature (which elected the state's representatives to the U.S. Senate until 1909).…
French/Cooke House
The French/Cooke House, now owned by the Cooke family's third generation, tells the intertwined story of two attorneys who came to Nevada from very different parts of the country at the height of the state’s mining boom and later became partners…
Chinatown (site)
Following the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, Reno—like other towns in the West—became a home for displaced Chinese laborers. The Sacramento-to-Reno section of the Central Pacific Railroad was completed in the spring of 1868; Chinese…