1471 High St
Denver, CO, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Peter McCourt House

Statement of Significant:

The Peter McCourt House is significant as an outstanding example of the adaptation of classical features to an otherwise typical Denver house. Also of interest is its association with one of Denver's colorful personalities, Peter McCourt.
Peter McCourt was the brother of Baby Doe Tabor, 1 wife of "Silver King" H.A.W. Tabor. Soon after Tabor's marriage to Baby Doe, Tabor brought his brother-in-law to Denver to be his private secretary. In 1883, after the acrimonious breakup of Tabor and his business partner, William Bush, which was dragged through the Denver courts and news- papers, Tabor made McCourt manager of the Tabor Grand Opera House, a position Bush had held since its opening in 1881. McCourt went on to become one of the best known and most successful theater managers in the country. He perfected a plan, originated by Bush, called the "Silver Theatrical Circuit" which made it profitable for entertainers from the east coast to travel to the isolated city of Denver. As manager of the "Silver Circuit," McCourt became the booking agent for theaters in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Trinidad, and the mining district of Colorado, and towns in Utah.
McCourt also continued as Tabor's trusted lieutenant and was vice president of many of the enterprises in which Tabor invested, When the Silver Crash and Depression of 1893 began to rapidly diminish the Tabor fortune, McCourt remained at Tabor's side, even joining the older man's desperate prospecting expedition to the silver mines of Mexico from which they hoped to renew the dwindling funds. Tabor was then near ruin.
11
McCourt, however, still unmarried at thirty-eight, met an attractive widow, Mrs. Emma Fellows Keet. Mrs. Keet was a member of one of Springfield, Missouri's most prominent and wealthy families, her father owning the Springfield Wagon Company, one of the country's largest manufacturer's of farm wagons, among other enterprises. Emma and Peter were married in 1895 and moved a year later into a new home at 1471 High Street where Mrs. McCourt began immediately to entertain many of Denver's elite, something Baby Doe, unacceptable to Denver's Society, had never been able to do.
The Tabor's financial distress was worsening, and in that same summer of 1896, they were about to lose their beloved Tabor Grand Opera House. Baby Doe came to her brother for help, but he was unable or unwilling to raise the mortgage money. She never spoke to him again.2 The quarrel could not have been helped by the fact that a week after title to the opera house was transferred to its new owner, and Peter McCourt lost his manager's position there, he went uptown to work as co-manager of the Grand's main competitor, the Broadway Theater with none other than William Bush, Horace Tabor's former partner.
The remainder of McCourt's career was spent primarily as a theater entrepreneur. By the end of 1897, he and Bush were again managing the Tabor Grand, then under ownership of an insurance company. In 1898, Bush died, and McCourt continued as manager of both theaters. the Broadway and Tabor, until just before his death in 1929. According to one newspaper, account, he eventually owned the Tabor. There McCourt showed the first moving pictures to be seen in Denver. Ironically, it was the coming of the movies which signaled the end of the heyday of live stage performances and the grand theaters. where they were performed. Both the Tabor and the Broadway eventually became movie theaters. (Both demolished.)

Mrs. McCourt, an ambitious and dynamic woman in her own right, helped with management of the theaters and even traveled to New York to book acts. She and Mr. McCourt entertained many of the most famous performers of the day in their home at 1471 High Street. La Loie Fuller, Paderewski, the Barrymores and John Philip Sousa were introduced to turn-of-the- century Denver by the McCourts.

The McCourts lived at 1471 High Street until 1909 when they moved to a home at 555 East 8th Avenue (demolished).

The home at 1471 High Street has had only two owners since the McCourts and still contains several pieces of furniture reputed to have been owned by Baby Doe. The second owners were the J. Fred Roberts family. Mr. Roberts was a road builder and helped build the cement highway between Denver and Colorado Springs, the last major project in the state using horses and mules. Horses were also his hobby and he raced teams with the Gentlemen's Riding and Driving Club at City Park, He took great pride in having a horse that had won the Kentucky Derby.

Roberts family members owned the home until 1971 when they sold it to next door neighbors, sister and brother John L. and Mary C. Griffith. The Griffith's were raised in the Chalet Apartments, originally the Bohm mansion which their parents converted to apartments in 1912. Mr. Griffith's wife Margaret has managed the apartments for many years. John and Mary Griffith are law partners. Mary Griffith lives in the second-floor apartment of 1471 High. All three of the Griffiths have been very active in Denver civic and service organizations, particularly Shriners, the Shriners' Women's Auxiliary Daughters of the Nile, and the Altrusa Club.

The architectural merits of the house rest with the Colonial Revival elements that are added to what is essentially an American Four Square. A dramatic effect is achieved through the use of two-story fluted Ionic columns supporting a two-story projecting portico. Set behind the large columns is a two-story balustraded porch with smaller Ionic column supports.
Other Colonial Revival features include the use of quoins, swag motifs in the entablature of the first-story portico, and the bell cast roof. The unusual design and the successful combination of styles make it a significant architectural example in Denver.