Victorian style home built in 1887, 7896 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and carriage house with 2-car garage. Oak, maple and mahogany woodwork from the craftsmen of the past and today. Brick and granite work that you cannot replicate. Grand formal dining, parlors and study-this is truly a fine home. Imagine the conversations and lives of those who called this Victorian Lady home over the years.
Address: 804 Dearborn Avenue, Helena, Montana 59601
THE CONRAD KOHRS HOME, located on Helena's Upper West Side at 804 Dearborn, was originally built in 1887 by Joseph H. Russell. Russell was a Virginia miner who followed the gold rush to California and Virginia City in 1864 and then continued on to Helena, where he mined in Grizzly Gulch. Due to financial misfortune, he lost the house to H.A. D'Acheul who rented it to Conrad Kohrs and his wife Augusta. Mrs. Kohrs loved her rented home so much that her husband bought it for her as an anniversary gift for their 32nd wedding anniversary in 1900. Kohrs came to Montana's Deer Lodge Valley in 1862, also looking for gold. He worked as a butcher in Bannack before opening his own meat shop in Alder Gulch and later owned butcher shops at many Montana mining camps. He managed his businesses well and soon was buying cattle throughout the state in order to meet the demand for beef. In 1866 Kohrs purchased the John H. Grant Ranch near Deer Lodge. The "Cattle King of Montana", as he was later known, was integral in the development of Montana's cattle industry. He brought the first shorthorns from Iowa to Montana in 1871 and introduced Herefords in 1880. Kohrs eventually controlled more than a million acres in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Canada. The Helena mansion Kohrs purchased for his wife is 7,896 square feet, features five bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a fantastic kitchen, laundry rooms on two floors, a grand formal dining room, parlors, and a study. Many of the original furnishings are housed at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch in Deer Lodge, which is now a National Historic Site. Over the past 10 years, the current owners have completed extensive updates to all the mechanical systems and restorations to the historical elements of the home. There is also a carriage house that is now used as a garage with living quarters above. Originally the main part of the house consisted of eleven rooms with five rooms in the rear wing for the kitchen, etc. with servants' quarters above. Many of the features in the living and dining room, such as the pocket doors, oak fireplace, woodwork, flooring, brass hardware on the doors and lighting fixtures in the hallway are original. The kitchen has been brought up to modern standards, and will be appreciated by any home chef. In 1911, a bathroom was added through the closet of the master bedroom on the second floor for the visit of Teddy Roosevelt, a friend of Kohrs' from the 1880s when Roosevelt ranched in the Dakota Territory.2 ANASTASIA BURTON
References
1. Windermere Real Estate: Retrieved May 22, 2009 from http://www.windermere.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Listing.ListingDetail&ListingID=34923678
2. Helena Lifestyles: June 2008. Anastasia Burton: Retrieved May 27th 2009 from http://www.helenalifestyles.com/
See Also:
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
Conrad Kohrs House, 804 Dearborn Avenue, Helena, Lewis and Clark County, MT
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