| |
St. Peter's Family Center -
827 12TH ST
 Print Listing
Historical Name -
Allen House; St. Peter's Convent
Style -
Late Victorian/Queen Anne
Built Year -
1906
State ID -
5WL3080
Description -
This Queen Anne style residence is a square, one story, brick structure with an asphalt shingle, gabled roof. Roof features include a shallow intersecting gable on the east side and a hipped roof dormer on the west face. It has a stone foundation and light-colored brick on the main level with square wood shingle siding on the gable ends. The main facade is broken into three bays and contains a centered entrance. The one-story, wrap-around wood porch has ten wood Tuscan columns with a wood balustrade rail. Windows are four-over-one, double hung wood frame windows and metal frame storm windows. A three-bay window is located on the west elevation. The brick chimney is located on the west side of the structure, running up the face of the intersecting gable.
Historical Background -
The house was originally built for Pliny Wadsworth Allen (P.W. Allen) in 1906. Allen was the co-founder and President of the Weld County Abstract Company. P.W. was prosperous in his position at the Abstract Company. By 1908, he had six clerks employed at the company. He also owned farm land, and was interested in building reservoirs, serving as secretary of the Boulder & Weld Reservoir Company and as treasurer of the Antero & Lost Park Reservoir Company. In 1906 he was elected as treasurer on the Republican ticket. A newspaper article stated that he “has administered the affairs in a most efficient and business like way.” As county treasurer, he increased office receipts by $180,000 in that two year period, and added a stenographer to the staff to handle the mail. The article went on to state that, “county funds are now distributed for deposit in different banks in the county, where satisfactory guarantee is made.” He ran for reelection as a Republican in 1908. He and his wife Florence Gillette, a long time resident of Greeley, were married and had two sons and a daughter before Florence died in 1920. P.W. remarried in 1920 to a woman named Emily Allen. They had a child which died at birth. Allen lived in the house until his death in February of 1932. According to the City Directories, Oscar G. Inman was the next resident of this house. He was the district manager of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He moved into the house in the early 1930s, and lived there until 1938. Nelson E. Reynolds, an agricultural engineer and lifetime resident of Greeley, lived in the house until his death in July 1949, when he died on fishing trip in Wyoming. His widow continued to live there through 1952. The next major owner and resident of the house were nuns from St. Peter’s School. In 1955, the church remodeled the house to convert it to a convent, with plans to enlarge the house the following year. The church began a campaign in June 1956 to raise money for several projects, including the expansion of the convent. Fr. Robert F. Hoffman was the pastor of the parish and the treasurer of the fundraising campaign and Dr. Joseph L. Haefeli was the general manager of the fundraising efforts. The house was used to house them until St. Peter’s Religious Education Center moved in in 1980. St. Peter’s Family Center and Green Thumb were listed in 1996 and 1997, however, St. Peter’s is the only current user of the building.
|