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 WHEN
WHIMSY REIGNED: A GINGERBREAD
VICTORIAN COTTAGE
The Arnett-Fullen House
By Carol Ward
Some call it a large dollhouse. Others refer to it as a miniature palace.
With a large tower, high arched windows, dormers and divits, gables and garrets
– it’s a 19th century home in Victorian Gothic-Revival style with
Second Empire influences and a few odd occurrences.
"Anyone who knows architecture or construction will be perplexed by this
house," says Tom Hogue, executive director of Historic Boulder, the home’s
owner. "It’s a house that defies explanation."
 Old photos fall off the wall. A telephone rings – no one’s there.
"This house is haunted, you know," says former executive director,
Gail Gray with a grin. The flickering of lights: "Well, that turned out to be the new
copier pulling too much electricity from the house. And a family of raccoons is
trying to invade us," she says.
Nestled for 126 years on the same West End corner in Boulder, this Seventh
Avenue and Pearl Street home is referred to as the gingerbread house for
fanciful architecture, particularly the lacy trim. The Arnett-Fullen house
remains a showcase for the gilded Victorian age. On a more personal note, it
reveals the tale of a family, in fact, two families – the Arnetts and Fullens.
Williamnett Arnett was 11 years old when his father, Anthony, arrived in
1859. The senior Arnett was born in Reichstoff, a province on the Rhine River in
Alsace-Lorraine, France, in 1819. Anthony started a successful freight business,
carrying supplies up and down the mountains to miners between Golden and Central
City. He operated the Boulder House, owned the Brainard Hotel and tinkered with
several mining operations.
 As he prospered, his family and his fortunes grew. He acquired real estate in
Boulder, eventually donating money and land to the building of the University of
Colorado.
Not as astute in business as his father, Will’s fortunes went up and mostly
down. But he enjoyed displaying his wealth as he walked the dusty streets of
Boulder in suits with $10 gold buttons. Why? "To show that he could,"
says volunteer Jo Wright.
In 1877, a year after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, Will
built a house that was considered lavish, costing twice as much, $4,000, as
surrounding cottages.
He hired twenty-seven year old British architect George E. King, who was
working in Leadville. A Londoner by birth, George immigrated to America and
originally lived in St. Louis. He was well traveled and, like many artists and
architects, influenced by the buildings of Europe, especially the French Second
Empire style. One of the first buildings he designed in Leadville was his own
home at West Ninth Street in 1880, which was a simple but elegant interpretation
of French design with a mansard tower. The popularity of his designs led to
other offers: the Tabor Grand Hotel, the Leadville Post Office, the Delaware
Hotel and Denver’s Central High School.
 Step into the Arnett-Fullen house and you’ve entered a time warp. Passing
under the high arched front entryway, it’s 1877 and Boulder is a new town. Few
houses appear nearby on the dirt streets. Horses and carriages are the main mode
of transportation. Out in front of the house near the street remains the
concrete stepping block to board a carriage or to mount a horse.
The first room -- the parlor – beckons. A large bay window in the front
center of the room overlooks Pearl Street. Above the bay window are white
plaster modillions with a floral and shell motif. In the middle of the nook
hangs an obtrusive hook hinting at its original purpose – holding a kerosene
lamp.
Take three or four steps across the petite room to the original iron mantle
and fireplace. What appears to be marble is a skilled painted rendering of faux
marble. A crystal chandelier sparkles above the Eastlake settee and chair owned
by the Fullens. These are the only pieces of original family furniture in the
house.
 High ceilings, walls with decorative moldings of London putty, high
double-hung windows and transoms (small windows that open above an inside door)
invite a light breeze. What is now an office might have been Will Arnett’s
office. Men coming to talk fast deals and big money would tie their horses at
the side porch off of the stables and walk straight into Will’s office.
Business could take place without disturbing his wife and their children, who
were sitting, sewing and reading in the parlor and family room. The Arnett’s
had nine children, four of whom survived to maturity.
It’s curious that there should be seven doors for such a small dwelling.
The mystery might be explained that the two doors at the front "were put in
for symmetry," says Gail Gray. Two doors open to two tiny wooden porches
and into the garden. Another back door—perhaps the coffin door--was customary
to bring in the deceased. Wakes were held in the home. The entryway is much too
narrow to bring in a coffin and around the stairway to the parlor. And, of
course, for the Victorian era, separate doors for servants.
The Arnett house once boasted the first bathing room in Boulder, which
consisted of a claw foot tub with a circular shower. To get to the outhouse,
family members had to step off the small side porch into the yard. A few years
later, it would be the first house to have central heating, cold running water
and an indoor bathroom.
A short narrow hallway leads to the dining room and kitchen in back of the
house. The original wainscoting remains on the dining room walls, although a
hutch was built into one corner of the dining room in the 1930s.
 It's
a steep and precarious climb up the narrow and partially suspended
stairway, which leads to three bedrooms and slightly more space upstairs. The
attraction today is the tower, a little large in proportion to the house, with a
concave capped mansard roof, a French influence. In the center is a bull’s eye
window. Beautiful scrollwork and cornices adorn the steep gabled tower with a
wrought iron steel-fenced widow’s walk above. At one time there were
"gilded horses surmounting all, " Gail says, about a weathervane meant
to be showy rather than helpful. "The house is given to total ostentation.
The owner and the architect were two known eccentrics."
On the top floor, the sloping roofs of the gables jut into the interior of
low slanted ceilings that requires even a child to bend, duck and wiggle around
corners. "It’s a sacrifice to the gods of style," laughs Gail, about
a house that hides awkward spaces in the interior to allow charm on the
exterior. Chimneys, for example, are built directly around and above the
windows.
The mansard tower, primarily ornamental, has finally found a purpose as
storage for documentation, which spills over from a small room filled with old
papers, blueprints, and dusty files of the house.
 Whether it is ostentation, or a mix of too many architectural elements, is a
matter of opinion. The house is a perfect example of neo-gothic Victorian at its
finest. The delicate romantic patterns on the exterior place the house in a
Brothers’ Grimm fairy tale, long an interest in architectural and historical
areas of study.
Outside, the gold gilded stables are long gone but the tack house remains. In
the garden, large tall cottonwood trees planted the year the house was built
bloom each spring. Old rosebushes and lilacs abound. "One of the best
things about working in this house," Gail says, "is the scent of the
lilacs coming in through an open window when I’m working in the family
room," another diminutive room on the first floor. The garden was not a
fancy Victorian garden. It was a working garden, producing fruits and
vegetables. Chickens, cows and horses roamed the property. Wild plum and
chokecherry trees are what’s left of a fruit orchard.
 Enveloping the house and garden, protecting it these many years, is an
antique cast iron gate restored in sections. Made and purchased in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, the gate was shipped to Omaha by rail and brought the rest of the
way to Boulder by oxen. Shipping cost alone was $1,500.
Will Arnett did not live out his old age contently in the comfortable
gingerbread house he built. He left for the Klondike Gold Rush, dying there in
Alaska in 1900.
In 1914, Mrs. Hiram Fullen, a miner’s widow, paid $17,500 for the house. It
fell into disrepair as a rental and was renovated in 1965 by her son. On
November 17, 1993, the house was up for public auction and purchased by Historic
Boulder, with the high bid of $479,000, including a match from the Colorado
Historical Society and private donations.
On the narrow steps of the stairwell, Elmer Zessin, a former board member,
carefully balances himself, taking measurements for a carpet runner. He admits
that he’s "failed at retirement," and does "a little bit of
everything in the house" as he has over the years, along with other
volunteers.
Laura Hanifin, former president of Historic Boulder, points to the
banister. "This was completely painted black." Underneath the paint is
the original walnut balustrade with walnut rails and rosewood inlaid newel post.
Historic homes survive when their charms are so enticing that problems appear
diminished. "It's a major piece of history and unique in Boulder,"
Gail says, and no coincidence that the Arnett-Fullen house has escaped destruction.
Protected and cherished by the community of Historic Boulder members, the
Arnett-Fullen home was meant to be eye-catching, flashy, daring and
off-beat--still a showpiece after all these years.
Architectural terms:
- Mansard tower: Tower with slopes on all four sides
- Divits: Jutting concave walls caused by pitches in the roof
- Dormer: Window set vertically in a small gable; projects from a sloping roof
- Gingerbread: Lacy decorative pattern of wood trimming on exterior of house
-
Gable: Triangular section at ends of a pitched roof
- Modillion: Ornamental bracket
- Newel post: The vertical support a the bottom center of a staircase; supports
the handrail
Arnett-Fullen House Facts:
- Built in 1877 by Will Arnett
- Address: 646 Pearl Street
- Size: approx. 2,000 sq. feet on 50 x 140 sq. ft.;
- Zoned historical plus adjoining 50 x 140 square feet landscaped lot zoned
- Landmarked in 1990
- Purchased by Historic Boulder at public auction on 11/18/93 for $479,000
- Architecture is Victorian Gothic with French influence
- Complete renovation by Hiram and Mrs. Fullen in 1965
- Architect George King
- Frank Maldon did the stonework. Carpentry was under the direction of D.L.
Hopkins.
Helpful websites: www.historicboulder.org
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