Carson City’s historic Clapp House being restored

Carson City’s Clapp House is showing signs of promise that it’s being restored to a thing of beauty again.

The 512 Mountain St. property, near the Governor’s Mansion with the city’s West Side Historic District, in just a few months’ time has been brought back to life.

The Hannah K. Clapp House — or the T.B. Rickey House, as its signage out front indicates — has been purchased by professor emeritus Lisa McFadden at cost but with purpose. She intends to restore the original name on the plaque for its original owner and leading contributor to Carson City’s early childhood programs, the University of Nevada, Reno’s first instructor, librarian and female faculty and Nevada Historical Society charter member Hannah Keziah Clapp.

“My goal is to have the home brought back,” McFadden said. “I want to have the Hannah Clapp house name come back. Not only did she do so many things for Carson City — you know, I’m a professor, so I have a fondness for her — but I think it was a little unfair to strip her name away.”

Building a house and legacy

Clapp came to Carson City in 1860 to establish a school and was co-founder of Nevada’s first kindergarten with co-principal and lifelong friend Eliza C. Babcock. By the 1880s, Clapp had secured a teaching position as a professor of English and history at UNR and began working to secure the vote for women in the state.

The Mountain Street house was built from 1865 to 1870 for Clapp, and she was the original owner. The six-bedroom, three-bathroom property provided extensive fencing with a landscaped garden and was taken care of by a hired gardener, according to the Nevada Women’s History Project (NWHP). Its style exemplifies typical sandstone and molded panels with scalloped corners of the period.

Clapp was responsible for organizing a co-educational school, the NWHP notes, and it became successful and attracted the attention of author Mark Twain. By 1864, Clapp hired Eliza C. Babcock, an English teacher from Maine to work as an assistant principal. The two remained friends until Babcock’s death in 1899.

Clapp donated to her city and local organizations, including establishing an iron fence around Nevada’s Capitol. She was thought to be business savvy since the transaction garnered Clapp and Babcock $1,000.

During her tenure as first instructor and librarian at UNR, the library expanded to more than 6,000 books and 5,000 pamphlets, the Nevada Historical Society records in a biography of her. She oversaw the female dormitories and once she retired, the Board of Regents recognized her with a resolution reading, “She will retain an honorary position in the University and an active interest in the life and growth of the institution.”

Clapp and Babcock established the house with landscaped gardening, graduated students through the school they established, the Sierra Seminary — Nevada’s first private school — and opened the first kindergarten in 1877.

Changing ownership

In 1892, California Gold Country miner T.B. Rickey would purchase the house. Rickey became a cattleman, brought up a herd in Douglas County and established a reputation as a meat supplier and the “cattle king” of Nevada. He also assumed control of the Nevada-California Power Company.

Fifteen years later, Rickey and his wife donated the land for the Governor’s Mansion, just north of the property, the previous Clapp house.

Adam Tytell, trustee, administrator and previous resident of the house still frequently called the T.B. Rickey House, said Clapp’s name disappeared from the plaque of the home after researching through estate sales that a review board and historians disagreed with Clapp’s lifestyle. Clapp had lived with Babcock as a personal friend, and many assumed Clapp was a lesbian and ignored her achievements, Tytell said.

“It doesn’t matter what Hannah Clapp did in her personal life,” Tytell told the Appeal. “She is personally responsible for buying this property and building this house. … They didn’t remove T.B. Rickey’s name. Tom Rickey was here for so many years and he was a crooked … businessman.”

Legally, the house was Tytell’s residence between 1993 and 1999, although he lived there only three of those years full-time, he said. But his uncle, Nowland Prater, had purchased the house in 1992 and recalled much of the recent history of the house and its possession in the hands of previous owners, including Richard Graves, owner of the Carson Nugget and what became John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks in the 1950s.

Restoring a legacy

Tytell said Lisa McFadden’s efforts to make the house period-appropriate was admirable, sharing historical details about residents, including Clapp and Babcock’s habits or additions the Rickeys made or thereafter.

“They did not prepare any food in the house, and in 1890, they added two more bedrooms,” he said.

The house remained in its condition until about 1954 when a patio was added on with a garden the following year. Its driveway wasn’t paved until the 1920s or ‘30s, he said, and it has been retrofitted.

With its historical significance and location within the West Side Historic District, an area nominated to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 2011, Clapp would be a “notable exception” to the city’s political scene in its beginnings, according to Carson City’s application to the NRHP.

Nomination to the registry typically starts with the State Historic Preservation Office. Properties are evaluated for age, significance and integrity, the National Park Service cites. Most properties are at least 50 years old or, if less than 50 years, must be “exceptionally important” to be considered for eligibility. Properties are formally recognized and can receive federal preservation grants for planning or rehabilitation, state tax benefits, networking opportunities with other historic property owners and become part of the National Register Archives.

The restoration work on an historic home requires the approval of the Carson City Historical Resources Commission (HRC), made up of seven members who serve four-year terms to review the remodeling, approve designs of buildings and deliberate plans or proposals on property tax deferments, grant opportunities or other funding needs.

HRC members safeguard projects brought before them and ensure compliance, Heather Ferris, Carson City planning manager, told the Appeal.

In June, the HRC reviewed a request for an historic tax deferment excluding the garage on McFadden’s property.

The following month, the commission twice reviewed McFadden’s plans to replace windows on the eastern side of the house, replace sliding glass doors with French doors, add a front drive gate and provide landscaping on the property.

Ferris said HRC applications are free of charge for property owners, and they need to add clear project descriptions for the committee members. Most upgrades are to modernize a property or make a home energy-efficient while preserving the character of the neighborhood, she said. There are a handful of companies from which property owners can purchase items that offer windows with the higher energy standards or doors that adhere to the municipal code or guidelines and retain the property’s style.

“Maybe you don’t have to replace all of them and blend them together, and the man on the street wouldn’t know the difference,” Ferris said. “…It seemed that folks were happy that somebody’s taking an interest in bringing the property back to life.”

Determining next steps

HRC documents state a site visit had been conducted on the home in May and inspectors found it to be in good condition. The house, representing early Greek Revival style and a transition between the Governor’s Mansion, has been altered with window replacements or changes to the porch throughout the years. Its garage is not considered a contributing building to the West Side Historic District’s National Register of Historic Places nomination.

Going before the HRC was one of McFadden’s first tasks to make sure the house remains within the guidelines of the West Side Historic District.

“There’s an air conditioner sticking out in front of the house that’s unsightly, and you have to have permission to remove anything like that or anything that might be changing the property from a historical perspective,” McFadden said. “My goal is to restore it back to its former glory.”

But the process takes time and money, and she said it’s been slow work to revive the home. She also sought to make the repairs before the winter weather arrived.

Part of her mission in purchasing the house wasn’t just to freshen its appearance but to restore the name of it on the plaque from the T.B. Rickey to the Hannah Clapp House in remembrance of her contributions to Carson City.

One of the remaining elements now is to ensure the plaque out front reflects Clapp’s name, a process for which Tytell said he would coordinate with Lisa McFadden and Jean-Guy Tanner Dubé, National and State Register of Historic Places coordinator and Historic Preservation Specialist 2 to rectify soon.

“(Clapp) did so many things to make Carson City a better place that they named the house after her,” she said. “…I didn’t make a ton of money, being a professor, over the years. I’m just doing a little at a time. It’s very expensive. But I’m doing the best I can.”

There has been positive reaction to McFadden’s investment in the Mountain Street house, and she considers it an honor to improve the neighborhood.

“It seemed that folks were happy that somebody’s taking an interest in bringing the property back to life,” she said.