Historic ‘Hood: Heritage Street provides an honest look at Southern Nevada

Monday, May 20, 2002 | 9:11 a.m.

What: Heritage Street.

Where: Clark County Museum, 1830 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson.

When: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.

Admission: $1.50; $1 for seniors and children.

Information: 455-7955.

The 1946 Plymouth parked outside the print shop on Heritage Street no longer runs.

Homes that once bustled with activity are quiet.

Sycamore trees shade the tidy lawns and sidewalks. Rose bushes sway in the breeze.

Each spring Dawna Jolliff walks through the well-furnished homes to change linen, rearrange knickknacks and tend to general cleaning. At Christmas she decorates the living rooms with holiday cheer. The floors creek as she steps across them. Heritage Street could be no more surreal.

The stretch of gravel road at Clark County Museum on Boulder Highway in Henderson is where select historic homes live out their years among rich lawns and daily visitors.

Facing demolition and decay, the five houses were plucked from Southern Nevada neighborhoods and brought to the museum for renovation and display.

Once refurbished, each home was filled with antiques and vintage decor to represent an era from the first half of the 20th century. Old ashtrays hold match books that advertise Las Vegas businesses and casinos from decades past. Grocery coupons clipped from a newspaper years ago sit next to an open recipe box on a kitchen counter.

Behind a Townsite home, one of 1,000 homes that were built during the 1940s for workers at the Basic Magnesium plant in Henderson, sits a victory garden a common site during World War II.

"We're trying to get people to feel as if they're stepping back in time," said Jolliff, the longtime curator of exhibits for Clark County Museum.

"The minute you walk through the door of the house, you've left today and gone back to the period of the house."

It's Jolliff's job to make sure that yesteryear on Heritage Street seems as real as possible. The rugs are accurate. The drapes are telling. Calendars, telephones and sundries help complete the story.

Some homes have exhibit rooms that feature photographs, display pieces and newspaper clippings from different eras.

Jolliff and other museum staff members have rummaged through thrift stores and garage sales for the relics.

Other furnishings filling the homes -- davenports, bedroom sets, lamps and chandeliers -- come from local residents who no longer have a need for the heirlooms.

"We're the purveyors of perpetuity," Jolliff said with a smile. "We keep it forever."

The beginnings

As a lifelong Southern Nevadan Jolliff knows how quickly historic buildings in the area disappear -- sometimes with fanfare, sometimes quietly.

"The whole idea of creating a historic-home area appealed to everybody because we were losing things so quickly," Jolliff said recently while walking on the neighborhood's gravel road.

"Everything gets torn down here (in Southern Nevada). Every one of these (homes) would be in the garbage bin if they were not out here -- every one."

Two structures new to the museum await renovation at the edge of the museum's parking lot. One is a pink cinderblock railroad cottage resting its heavy load on wood blocks and I-beams.

The other structure is the Grand Canyon Airlines Ticket Office building that was built at the old Boulder City Airport in the 1930s. It later became the home of Boulder City's first black family.

Both buildings arrived at the museum a few months ago and will be placed on foundations this summer, Chris Leavitt, curator of education at the museum, said. The museum then will apply for restoration grants, most likely from the state.

Because of limited funding the homes can't be brought to the museum unless there is an individual or organization willing to sponsor the move.

Grants from the State Historic Preservation Office have helped pay for the moving and restoration of some of the homes.

Transportation of other homes was sponsored by such groups as the Museum Guild for the Clark County Museum and the Junior League of Las Vegas.

All of the houses needed to be rewired for electricity, which is used to power air conditioning systems that protect the antiques and walls in extreme temperatures.

Beckley House

The Beckley House, a California-style bungalow built in 1912 on Fourth Street in downtown Las Vegas, was the first house to arrive on Heritage Street. The wooden home was brought to the museum in 1979.

The cost to move the house to the museum was $10,000. The yearlong restoration of the home was another $65,000.

It was followed by four other homes, a 1930s one-room cabin from a Las Vegas auto court (a lodging area with separate cabins and a communal bathroom facility) and a print shop that was built as a replica of print shops from the early 1900s.

The Beckleys, Will and Leva, owned a men's clothing store in downtown Las Vegas.

During its heydey their home was a center for social activity in town. In its final days on Fourth Street the home was the last pioneer home (an early home built for Las Vegas' first residents) left standing.

At the museum the home's decor was returned to the 1920s by using original photographs provided by the Beckley family. Much of the furniture and items in the home also belonged to the Beckleys.

"We've tried to put back a lot of the personality," Jolliff said.

Will Beckley died in 1965. Leva Beckley lived in the house until 1978, when, at age 93, she moved in with family members.

"I remember Mrs. Beckley sitting on the porch," Jolliff added, while looking out at the yard. "A lot of early Las Vegans remember walking by and seeing her."

Goumond house

Looking at the Goumond house it's difficult to believe that the home arrived on Heritage Street in 1984 in such a wrecked state -- its ceiling needed to be replastered and its floors restored.

The house, described by the museum as "an American fantasy home," was built combining three architectural styles: Tudor, Swiss chalet and Scandinavian.

The house was built in 1931. Pros Goumond, who opened the Boulder Club on Fremont Street, had lived in the home. It was opened to the public on Heritage Street in 1999.

The home was donated to the Preservation Association of Clark County and the now- defunct Southern Nevada Historical Society by attorneys who needed the property it sat on to build a parking lot.

Once renovated and placed on Heritage Street the home's interior was decorated to reflect life during the 1950s. Its walls are painted pink and seafoam green to represent the popular color trends of the time.

Pink flamingos, porcelain parrots and retro lamps stand on the vintage tables decorating the living room.

A small hutch, designed to hold a folding card table and a deck of cards, was built into a wall that separates the living room from the dining room.

The kitchen features a chrome dinette, vintage decor and metal cracker box. A 1959, turquoise Studebaker Lark -- still operable -- sits in its carport.

The neighborhood

Across the street from the Goumond House is the Townsite home that is decorated to reflect the 1940s, and includes an exhibit room of '40s newspaper clippings and photographs.

Next door to the Townsite home is a one-room cottage from an auto court in Las Vegas. The cottage was built in the 1930s when automobiles, legalized gambling and easy divorce were drawing tourists to the area.

The Museum Guild for Clark County Museum sponsored the move of the Townsite Home and for the Giles/Barcus house, a 26-by-24-foot cottage built in 1905 and later owned by a mining engineer and surveyor in Goldfield.

At the end of the street is the Babcock and Wilcox house, which was built in Boulder City in 1933. The replica print shop in the middle of the block features early Las Vegas presses and newspapers.

Longtime Las Vegas historian Frank Wright said of Heritage Street: "It's a remarkable reminder of what Southern Nevada used to be about."

Similar to Heritage Street some of the older neighborhoods in Las Vegas have an eclectic mix of homes, he said. "It's a tremendous experience for kids to walk through."

Busloads of students from the Clark County School District visit the museum daily throughout the school year.

"Last year we had well over 8,000" schoolchildren visit, Kitty Heckendorf, the museum's assistant curator of education, said. "This year we're beyond that already."

Heckendorf said the homes are valuable for teaching children about how Las Vegas residents once lived.

"Time is a hard concept for young people," Heckendorf said. "Time is a mystery. Even for most adults it escapes them to think of what life might have been like."

"You need some perspective of your roots," she added. "I call these houses time capsules."

Standing in the entryway of the Townsite home, Henderson resident Pattie Fidler scanned the living room.

For Fidler and her husband, Howard, Heritage Street is a trip down memory lane.

"You used to be able to buy a davenport, a chair, two end tables, a coffee table, two lamps and two pictures for around $200, maybe a little more," Fidler said. "I remember it very clearly."

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