Donnels-Cahlan-Scott House (site)
From 1900 to about 1913, Albert T. and Christine Donnels and their son Albert Jr. lived in the Queen Anne house that once stood at 815 N. Center. Donnels and his partner Theodore Steinmetz had established a successful furniture store on the northwest corner of 2nd and Sierra in 1896, which prospered until they leased the building to the J.C. Penney company.
Like the others on the block, the A.T. Donnels House was a Queen Anne, this one in the Eastlake style. Its gingerbread detailing was a charming touch, as were the decorative brackets supporting the upper corners of the front facade.
Albert W. Cahlan, a carpenter, lived in the house with his family during the 1920s and early 1930s. Tradesmen and business owners and their families occupied the home for the next 20 years, including, in the late thirties, the Goldsworthys, whose daughter Eleanor was a student at the university. The Snook family, owners of Snook's Restaurant on W. 4th Street, lived here in the mid-1940s, followed by William Harley, a policeman. A small apartment provided owners with a small income.
In the mid-1950s Delmer Scott and his family bought the house. Scott was a carpenter on various building projects such as the Bay Neva housing development in northwest Reno. He began building additions, subdividing the house and converting the garage to create apartments, and by 1970 there were six separate units at this address, including the one the Scotts occupied until the mid-1980s. Six apartments were listed in city directories for the next decade, until separate rentals units were eliminated. In 1998, the house was purchased by Ken Yamada, and it was listed in county records as a 2,862-square-foot single-family unit with seven bedrooms and six baths and a separate unit in the back. The house was later purchased and demolished by the University of Nevada, Reno.
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