660 sl Bowers Mansion

The Bowers Mansion was built in 1863 by Lemuel Sandy Bowers and his wife, Eilley, and is the finest example of the homes built in Nevada by the new... more

by Chris Berry

Title

660 sl Bowers Mansion

Artist

Chris Berry

Medium

Photograph - Digital Photo,

Description

The Bowers Mansion was built in 1863 by Lemuel "Sandy" Bowers and his wife, Eilley, and is the finest example of the homes built in Nevada by the new millionaires of the Comstock mining boom. The land originally was purchased in 1856 by Eilley and her first husband Alex Cowan, who returned to Utah a year later with other Mormon settlers. Eilley secured a divorce and moved to Gold Canyon where she ran a boarding house and later acquired the mining claim which, together with that belonging to her second husband Sandy, became the source of their fortune. The mansion was the fulfillment of Eilley's dreams of prestige and respectability. The mansion, designed by J. Neeley Johnson, a builder and ex-governor of California, combined Georgian and Italianate architectural styles. It was modeled after a design conceived by Eilley based on her recollection of elegant buildings in her native Scotland. Indeed, the Bowers employed stonecutters from Scotland for the construction of their new home, which eventually cost $400,000 to build, an exorbitant sum in the 1860s. Eilley and Sandy toured Europe from 1861 to 1863, purchasing furniture, statuary, painting and other adornments for their home.

NOTE this image was scanned from a film slide. (it is not from a digital camera, hence the more grainy quality)

Uploaded

December 17th, 2012