Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Diocese putting retreat center up for sale

Wellspring

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

A view of Lake Mead from a bay window inside the sanctuary, once used as an operating room, of the Life-Giving Springs Retreat Center, formerly known as Wellspring. The historic building was constructed in 1931 as the Boulder City Hospital and is being sold by the Orthodox Church.

Wellspring

The Old Boulder City Hospital, constructed in 1931 Launch slideshow »

Life-Giving Springs Retreat Center

Every now and then, if the doors to the Life-Giving Springs Retreat Center are left unlocked, Karen Short might find a person sitting in the small chapel in the center's private wing.

They're not there to worship in the Orthodox Church chapel. They're on a more personal journey — visiting the maternity ward of the original Boulder City Hospital.

"We've had Boulder City people come back and say, 'I've come back to Square One,'" said Short, former director of the center.

Short is now the Realtor trying to sell the historic building for the Western diocese of the Orthodox Church, which has closed it. The Orthodox Church bought the retreat center, formerly known as Wellspring, in 2000 from the Episcopalian Sisters of Charity.

At the time, it was a way to serve church groups and reach out to other faiths and the world, Short said, but a new bishop has a new vision for the diocese, which is geographically large but small in numbers. It includes states from Colorado west, excluding Alaska, but has only 2,300 members. Its biggest church is St. Paul the Apostle in Las Vegas, with 100 active members.

That has made it difficult for the diocese to make good use of the retreat center, Short said. Most churches in the diocese find it too difficult to travel to Boulder City for a retreat, she said.

The diocese is asking $1.5 million for the center that sleeps 43. It sits on a 2-acre parcel on a hill overlooking Lake Mead.

As Short gives a tour of the four wings that surround a small, square courtyard, she recalls the original use of each room — the admitting room that is now part of the lobby, the operating room that became a dining area, the morgue, which became a conference room, and the former maternity ward, consecrated to become a chapel.

She describes how, during her years as director here, the rooms filled with church groups, Alcoholics Anonymous gatherings, crafting weekends and conferences. The center staff had guests do simple chores like making their own beds to help the center feel more like home, Short said. The bonding that occurred here during retreats is part of its history.

But not all of it, by any means. The building at 700 Arizona St., which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, has a checkered past.

The hospital was constructed in 1931 by Six Companies, the consortium that built Hoover Dam, to care for its workers. Their families had to go into Las Vegas for care, according to historian Dennis McBride's history of Boulder City, "In the Beginning."

After the dam was completed, the hospital sat empty for three years before it became a museum for artifacts that the Bureau of Reclamation was rescuing from the rising waters of Lake Mead. The bureau moved out in 1941, and the U.S. Public Health Service reopened the building as a hospital for the war wounded in 1943.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which still managed the city, ran the hospital until the spring of 1954, when it decided to get out of the hospital business. It gave Boulder City residents two weeks to raise $15,000 to keep it open. A door-to-door campaign exceeded the goal, and the Boulder City Hospital stayed.

In 1973, a new hospital building was constructed on Adams Boulevard. The old building was deserted, fell into disrepair and was condemned, McBride writes.

It was bought in 1976 by the Sisters of Charity, who renovated it and named it Wellspring. The sisters moved to West Virginia almost 25 years later.

When the Orthodox Church took it over, it neglected to file the proper paperwork with Clark County for nonprofit status, and it fell into arrears on taxes, according to Rocky Steel of the Assessor's Office. The county Treasurer's Office placed a lien on the building.

But the recent tax problems have nothing to do with the decision to sell the property, Short said. The church has filed the proper paperwork and now has the local nonprofit status, but it still has a past bill of $7,800, which an attorney is working on clearing up.

"We own (the center) free and clear," she said. "If it were over the tax issue, we would just cut a check."

The problem is that the retreat center is too much for the small diocese, she said. So she hopes to find someone who loves the old building as much as she does to breathe new life into it.

So far, she's had interest from several parties, none of which she will name. But she could see a future for the building as a school, a day-care center that trains teachers or an assisted-living center.

"It's a great opportunity for someone who has a great idea," Short said.

If it weren't for the recession, the center would probably be sold by now, Short said, but as it is, she doesn't see the building remaining vacant for long.

"You can't help falling in love with it when you go there," she said.

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