Briarhurst Manor, also known as William A. Bell House, is a finely grained pink Victorian

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in the city of

Manitou Springs, Colorado Manitou Springs is a home rule municipality located at the foot of Pikes Peak in western El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The town was founded for its natural mineral springs. The downtown area continues to be of interest to traveler ...

. It is the second building on this site. Construction of the original Briarhurst began in 1872. Dr. William Bell, the home's owner, left for England to marry a woman named Cara, who agreed to live with Bell in Colorado as long as her children were born in England. The Tudor Revival style home was added to the

in 1973.

Fountain Creek Fountain Creek is a creek that originates in Woodland Park in Teller County and flows through El Paso County to its confluence with the Arkansas River near Pueblo in Pueblo County, Colorado. The creek,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hyd ...

passes through the estate and the home is in the shadow of

Pikes Peak Pikes Peak is the List of mountain ranges of Colorado#Mountain ranges, highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. The Ultra-prominent peak, ultra-prominent fourteener is located in Pike National Forest, ...

. Under Mrs. Cara Bell's direction, Briarhurst became "the social center" of the community, hosting the internationally famous of the day, President Grant, President Teddy Roosevelt and Oscar Wilde after his lecture in Colorado Springs in 1882. On occasion, a tribe of friendly

Ute Ute or UTE may refer to: * Ute people, a Native American people of the Great Basin * Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Utah * Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah * Southern Ute Indian Tribe of the Southern ...

s camped on the Briarhurst estate grounds while preparing to go into the Garden of the Gods, for them a holy

place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is s ...

. One winter night in 1886, while Dr. Bell was away on business, Mrs. Bell awoke to a

bedroom A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterized by its usage for sleeping. A typical Western world, western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedsid ...

filled with

smoke Smoke is an aerosol (a suspension of airborne particulates and gases) emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwante ...

. Burning

ember An ember, also called a hot coal, is a hot lump of smouldering solid fuel, typically glowing, composed of greatly heated wood, coal, or other carbon-based material. Embers (hot coals) can exist within, remain after, or sometimes precede, a ...

s escaped from a

fireplace A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design. ...

in Briarhurst. She woke the

children A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

and

servant A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly ...

s. Cara stayed in the burning house and with the help of

gardener A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby. Description A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner suppleme ...

Schneider, they rescued a prized oil painting by Thomas Moran, the "Mount of the Holy Cross". The family escaped safely, but lost all of their belongings and returned to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. They returned in early 1887 to begin reconstruction of a second, more elaborate Briarhurst Manor, complete with

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

room, conservatory,

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

and a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

with a special alcove to display the "Mount of the Holy Cross." Today, of the original Briarhurst estate is a restaurant and event venue. The restaurant seats over 400 guests and features Colorado cuisine. About 2 acres of the old estate is used for a large warehouse building and the Blue Skies Inn Bed and Breakfast utilizing the original 1873 carriage house and 4 other buildings. Hundreds of weddings and receptions are celebrated in the Briarhurst gardens created by Dr Bell's gardener Ferdinand Schneider over a hundred years ago.

References

External links

Briarhurst (official site)
{{National Register of Historic Places Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado Gothic Revival architecture in Colorado Houses completed in 1888 Manitou Springs, Colorado Houses in El Paso County, Colorado Tourist attractions in El Paso County, Colorado National Register of Historic Places in El Paso County, Colorado 1888 establishments in Colorado

See also

References

External links