The Sharp Mansion

This beautiful home at 1600 N. Cascade in the Old North End, not far from my studio, is called the Sharp Mansion. I (and probably many other long-time Colorado Springs residents) personally know it as the old Red Cross building. When I was in college, my boyfriend at the time had a part-time job at the Red Cross, so I am one of the lucky ones who've actually seen the interior of this magnificent place. I truly can't describe the grandeur, even though at the time it was in use as basically an office building! Some time in the last few years a family bought it. I remember seeing a swingset in the yard and thinking, wow, lucky kids live there!

Lately, the Sharp Mansion has come up for sale. Imagine living here -- well here's your chance! (And at over 13,500 square feet, you'd better have a lot of cashola just to furnish the place.) The asking price is a cool $2.25 million. If only I could win the Lotto this week!

ETA (12 January 2012): I see the asking price has been lowered to $1,995,000. A bargain!

Grace Episcopal Church

Beautiful Grace Episcopal Church, situated on the corner of Tejon and Monument streets and built in the 1920s. Please see yesterday's post for an explanation of its recent (controversial) history. I personally think this is the most beautiful church in town, and this photo certainly doesn't do it justice! I love the gothic spires, and inside the sanctuary the groin vaulted ceilings are magnificent, as is the stained glass. As I was taking this picture I could hear a chamber music concert wrapping up inside. Chamber music performed within its stone walls is simply sublime. I wish I had been inside instead of out!

The McWilliams House

This is the McWilliams House, an absolutely beautiful Georgian revival mansion (at least I think it's Georgian revival, though it may be Victorian or Edwardian) that sits next to Grace Episcopal Church. It is, in fact, the property of Grace Episcopal, which is our most beautiful local church if you ask me. The McWilliams house is equally beautiful -- I have always admired it and fantasized about living in such a grand home. Sadly, in recent years it has fallen into disrepair due to lack of funds for upkeep, in part because there was a legal battle raging within the parish as to who actually owned the property.

Let's see if I can explain this as simply as possible: in the US, the Episcopalian church ordained an openly gay priest. This happened some time ago and I vaguely remember a news report about it. The Episcopalian Church has generally been moving in a liberal direction, which has caused concern/dissent among the more conservative members. At the same time, the leader of Grace Episcopal, Don Armstrong, was accused of misappropriating church funds to the tune of about $1.2 million. The membership of the parish then fell into two opposing factions: loosely, those who supported Mr. Armstrong, who was among the conservative opinion (and I'm assuming his supporters were as well); and those who agreed with the mainstream Church regarding homosexuality and did not support Mr. Armstrong. There was a great deal of valuable real estate at stake, as the church and McWilliams house are worth over $2 million. The battle raged on through the courts for a couple of years, with the parishioners actually holding services in two separate places in the meantime, until the non-Armstrong supporters eventually won. This makes sense to me, as the Armstrong supporters had basically voted to "secede" from Grace Episcopal and had broken away from it; how could they then lay claim to the property?

I don't recall what Mr. Armstrong's fate was (is he in prison?). I'm just glad that there was finally an end to the battle, which must have been agonizing for all the parishioners. I'm also glad that the McWilliams house has received grants and funding for its restoration, which is now underway. You can see from the picture that it's in a sad state, though some of the peeling paint may be attributed to scraping in preparation for a new application. I can't wait to see it all gussied up and beautiful again. Maybe in a year's time I can post a picture of it restored to its original beauty.

Tomorrow, a photo of the church itself. You'll see why there was a battle over it!

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Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods, as seen through a screen of rudbeckia growing near Mesa Road, at the overlook.

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The west facade and roofline of a decrepit building on North Nevada, across the street from the dog track.

Hummingbird moth

Check out this hummingbird moth that I noticed in a downtown garden a couple of days ago. The first time I saw a moth like this I was certain it was a hummingbird. A friend had to convince me otherwise, after which I was decidedly grossed out. I was born in northern Wisconsin and raised in the Philippines, both of which are insect purgatory, so I'm not generally bothered by bugs. But moths, for some reason, really creep me out! Especially big ones. Hummingbird moths are no exception. Those beady little eyes give me the willies! Yuck!

The Downtown Barber Shop

On the corner of Willamette and Tejon, just around the corner from Panino's Restaurant, is the Downtown Barber Shop. It's been there forever and it's very old school. Shave and haircut for cheap, no appointment necessary, lad mags everywhere. When I was in my 20's I lived a couple of doors down, but never stopped in. I've been trying to convince Pat to go in there for his next cut!

Prospect Lake

Prospect Lake, 1932

Prospect Lake, September 12, 2010

Prospect Lake is the centerpiece of Memorial Park, a few blocks west of our house. Pat and I like to walk around the lake in the late afternoon. It's a popular place -- lots of people enjoying the footpath, kids using the playground, and during the summer there are always plenty of water lovers jetskiing or boating on the lake. I found this picture of Prospect Lake taken in 1932, more than 25 years before our house was even built. I decided to try and duplicate the image in the modern day. I did my best! Upon review it does look like the original picture was taken from a farther away perspective, using a longer lens, but my shot is a fairly close approximation. In both images you can see the spires of the Union Printers Home just beyond the trees at top right, and the bluffs of Palmer Park to the left.

About four years ago the City decided to drain Prospect Lake to repair a leak. It took months to drain, repair and refill it. As the water level slowly went lower and lower, they began to find all sorts of things on the lake bed -- including an entire Volkswagen Beetle! Who knows how long it had been there. The best guess on how it got there was that someone must have driven it out onto the frozen lake during the winter, and as the ice gave way the driver "abandoned ship" and left the car to sink.

Of course, just before I managed to snap this photo, the lone jetskier on the lake at the time decided to take a break, so my picture's not as exciting as the one taken in 1932. But there were plenty of people at the lake today, enjoying this beautiful end-of-summer day.

ETA, 10/06/2010: Tragically, on September 20th, just a few days after this blog post, two high schoolers drowned in Prospect Lake mere yards from the spot where I stood to take this picture. Please, teach your children to swim. It's an important life skill. It could save their life one day.

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Whenever I see an amusing bumper sticker, I try to get a picture of it (which is no mean feat when you're in traffic). This one made me giggle.

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When you think of the American west, does a building like this one come to mind? This is an antique shop housed in a turn of the century building on Manitou Avenue. I wonder what other businesses have lived here over the years?

Whooping cranes

This large, graceful sculpture of whooping cranes by Kent Ullberg, entitled Rites of Spring (1993), sits on the corner of Monument and Cascade, just north of the historic Cascade Park Apartments. It's been there for a decade and a half and yet I've never really taken the time to photograph it, even though my studio was located across the street from it for years. Yesterday I finally made a point of it. The small placard affixed to the base reads:

"Saved from the brink of extinction, the whooping crane symbolizes the global contemporary concern with conservation. Colorado is on the western edge of their flyway to breeding grounds in Canada. Wildlife sculptor Kent Ullberg's visual statement is a reminder of environmental concerns as well as the beauty of nature itself."

I never knew that whooping cranes ever even came close to Colorado. You learn something new every day!