Las Vegas Historic Preservation Week, Part 2

Okay, here is the line-up for Saturday, May 17th.  Two weeks ago, Jack LeVine and I were joking that May is the busiest month for events and the first weekend in May was a whirlwind of activity.

But this Saturday will definitely be the official winner of cool May events.  It is Cultural History Day and so here is your chance to learn about the different facets of Las Vegas history, learn about preservation, listen to music, see a mini-film festival of documentaries on Las Vegas, take tours of some very cool (and not often open to the public without appointment) places and experience the Helldorado Parade.

Plan to get up early, take plenty of water for driving around the Valley to the various events and settle back later in the evening with a Parade.  It'll be cool (well, probably not the weather), we promise. 

This Saturday, May 17th the line-up is: 

 

The Neon Museum is going to open their boneyard and offer hourly tours on Saturday, May 17th from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.  Normally tours are $15 but on this Saturday the tours are only $5 a person.  So get up early and get to the boneyard to see the wonderful signs they have display and perhaps more importantly, the work on the La Concha (they are doing a wonderful job of putting it back together).

The Neon Boneyard is at the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd North and McWilliams Street.  Parking is available across the street at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center.

 

The very endangered and venerable Huntridge Theater will be open for limited hourly tours from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.  Come learn about the history of the building, what you can do to help save it and ensure that the community has a voice in what happens to the building.  And a chance to see the interior of the building for the first time in over five years.  How cool is that?

This event is sponsored by The Friends of Classic Las Vegas and the Save the Huntridge Community Group.  The Huntridge Theater is located at the corner of Maryland Parkway and E. Charleston Blvd.

 

The Las Vegas Springs Preserve is hosting the Cultural History Fair this year.  Admission to the Fair, its music festival and its Las Vegas Film Festival is free.  The Cultural History Fair runs from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Inside the Learning Center there will the various historic preservation groups, museums and archaelogical groups.  The Friends of Classic Las Vegas will be passing out information on preservation, history and lots more.

The Las Vegas Film Festival will offer a variety of documentaries on Las Vegas and Nevada history.  Included in the sceenings is our own "The Story of Classic Las Vegas". 

At 1:40 pm, there is a showing on the history of Helldorado, "Helldorado Through the Years" which features home movies and more of past Helldorado parades.  Directly following that, Dennis McBride offers some very rare home movies of the Las Vegas Strip,  historian and preservationist Bob Stoldal follows with  two short films on Places that Aren't There Anymore.   Our own "Story of Classic Las Vegas" follows Bob at about 3:45.

The Music Festival includes Paiute Pow-Wow dancers and much more.

A great way to experience our history and our culture. 

The Las Vegas Springs Preserve is located at the corner of Valley View Blvd and Meadows Lane. 

 

The Junior League of Las Vegas is going to have the historic Morelli House open for free tours between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm.  If you have never been inside this wonderful mid-century modern house, don't miss this opportunity.  The house was saved by the Junior League from the old Desert Inn Golf Course and Country Club.  Restored with many of its original fixtures, appliances and wonderful interpretative book by our pal Alan Hess, be sure to say "hey" to DeeDee Nave for us!

The Morelli House is located at the corner of Bridger and 9th Street, across the street from the Las Vegas Academy (formerly the original Las Vegas High School).

 

End the day with us (and everyone else) at the Helldorado Parade!

The Parade is free and goes across 4th Street from Gass to Stewart Street.  It all starts at 7:00 pm and ends at 9:00 pm.  There are floats, cars, musical bands and more.  Get there early to get a good seat.

The Friends of Classic Las Vegas is in the parade with our President, Ben Litivinoff and his classic  pink Cadillac.   Riding with Ben will be former Lt. Governor Lorraine Hunt and her husband Dennis Bono as well as yours truly and some other special guests.

So, plan out your day and don't miss any of these great events. 

Las Vegas Historic Preservation Week, Part 1

Stop laughing. 

It's true.   In fact, May is Historic Preservation Month in Nevada.  This week is Historic Preservation Week in Las Vegas.

We have two Classic Las Vegas Roadshow events this week and on Saturday we are part of Cultural History Day.  We will post the activities for Saturday later this week and they may make your head explode, there is just so much going on.

So, if you are interested in history and Las Vegas come to our Roadshow Events this week:

 

The Las Vegas News Bureau, the Friends of Classic Las Vegas and Clark County Parks and Recreation present:

The History of Helldorado 

If you are new to town and wonder why there is a Helldorado Celebration (which is coming on May 17th) or if you remember fondly sitting on the curb on Fremont Street watching those beautiful floats go by, come on around and here the stories of how and why Helldorado got started and what it was like. 

At one point in the 1950s, it rivaled the Rose Parade in terms of attendance and beautiful floats.

A great evening of history and fun that you won't want to miss!

The History of Helldorado

Tuesday, May 13th

Clark County Museum

1830 S. Boulder Highway 

7:00 PM   (Please note new START TIME)

Panelists include:

Emmett Sullivan, the son of co-founder Mark Sullivan

Tim Cashman, the grandson of co-founder, Big Jim Cashman

Don Payne, former Manager of the Las Vegas News Bureau

 

CCC workers take a lunch

(Image courtesy of the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association) 

As part of Historic Preservation Month, the Friends of Classic Las Vegas and the Classic Las Vegas Roadshow are proud to announce our upcoming panel on Southern Nevada and the New Deal.

Hosted by the Nevada State Museum and Friends of Classic Las Vegas, this informative Roadshow event will delve into the history of how in the depths of the Great Depression, the New Deal's effect not only on the country but on Southern Nevada specifically.

Please join us to hear Historians Dennis McBride and Peter Gough and long-time residents Mike Pinjuv, Johnny Pinjuv and Bonnie Rams as they discuss the Las Vegas that they knew and what the New Deal meant for the Valley.

It will be a wonderful evening of history, stories and memories and you don't want to miss it!

Wednesday, May 14th

Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

700 Twin Lakes Dr

Lorenzi Park

5:00 - 6:00 pm  Reception

6:15 - 8:15 pm  Roundtable Discussion

Refreshments will be served.

And stay tuned for the upcoming events on Saturday that include tours of the Huntridge Theater, the Neon Boneyard, the Morelli House and more.

It's going to be a great week to celebrate Las Vegas History.  So come on out and join the fun! 

The Morelli House

 

The wonderful Morelli House was open this morning courtesy of the Junior League and the Preservation Association of Clark County.

According to docent Donna Andress, the Morelli House is a classic example of Las Vegas mid-century residential architecture.

Our pal, Alan Hess, says "In Las Vegas the past is often overlooked, forgotten or demolished in the rush to the future.  The historic Antonio and Helen Morelli house, preserved by the Junior League, however is a vibrant reminder fo the newness, optimism and style in Las Vegas in the mid-20th century."

The house was built in 1959 at 52 Country Club Drive in the prestigious Desert Inn Country Club Estates.  The house had a wonderful view of the world-class Desert Inn Golf Course.  Sands Hotel Orchestra Leader Antonio Morelli chose the mid-century modern design for the house.  Working with the hotel's carpenter forman, Richard Small, the two men over the course of two years designed and built the house.  Hugh E. Taylor, a local architect, drew up the plans.

"The house's bold horizontal lines", according to Hess, "glass walls, open plan and natural materials embody the fundamental tents of Modern architecture and Modern living in that period." 

Morelli and his wife, like so many newcomers back then (and today) came to take advantage of the possibilities of a new life in Las Vegas.  The Sands Hotel, perhaps more than any other hotel of its day, resides in our collective memory of Classic Las Vegas as the epitome of class and style.

The Morellis had arrived at the right time.  From New York, the classically trained musicial traveled the country as a pianist with various vaudeville acts and theater productions.  He had married Helen Collins in 1935.  They arrived in Las Vegas at the right moment.  The theater circuit that had sustained Morelli for many years was coming to an end.  Television was the new interest and variety shows brought entertainers into people's homes for free.  Las Vegas brought those entertainers to the showrooms of the Strip where for $15 dollars you could have dinner, two drinks, dessert and see Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland and the other stars of Classic Las Vegas.

The Morelli house was 2800 square feet with plenty of room for entertaining.  The main room with its copper hooded fireplace and the formal dining area had a spacious view of the Golf Course courtesy of the tall ceilings and sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio.  The kitchen offered a more initimate less formal area filled with the top of the line appliances of the day and leather banquettes.  A television cabinet kept them up on all the latest news.

On the other side of the living room, a hallway leads to the master bedroom and a guest suite.

When it was located on the Country Club, the house had an outdoor pool in the front yard.  A walled yard offered some privacy for the swimming pool.  Screens of ornamental block added more privacy and texture.

Morelli later added a studio on the other side of the kitchen but, due to structural limitations, that structure could not be moved.

After Morelli passed away, his wife Helen decided to move back to New York to be closer to her family.  Mr. Kay G. Glenn who was Howard Hughes press secretary from 1951 until the millionaire's death in 1976 bought the house.  He only made two small changes to the house in the 22 years he owned it.  He changed the paint color in two places.  He took exceptional care of the house and respected the original concept that Morelli had envisioned.  Because of this, the house was in its near original condition and represented a "perfect historically unaltered example of mid-century residential architecture."

In 2000, Steve Wynn purchased the Desert Inn Hotel and the homes on the Golf Course.  He had plans for a new resort that did not include the Golf Course or the homes.  At that time, the Junior League had attempted to save the Whitehead house, the childhood home of neon designer, Betty Willis.  They had moved the endangered house to a vacant lot donated by Jackie Gaughan.  Unfortunately, the Whitehead house fell victim to a fire of suspicious nature and was lost.

Developer Irwin Molasky contacted the Junior League and offered them the Morelli House.  The University of Las Vegas School of Architecture had identified the house as the house "most worthy of saving due to its classic mid-century design, superior workmanship and materials and its historical provenance."

The house was moved to the corner of 9th and Bridger diagonally across the street from the old Las Vegas High School.

The Junior League has taken great care of the house and teamed with furniture maker Valdimir Kagan.  Mr. Kagan toured the house and became so enthralled with the possibilities that he designed and donated the furniture in living room.  The burgundy serpentine sofas were donated by American Leather Company adn the cocktail tables and barrel chairs were donated by Weiman Preview Furniture Company.

The Morelli House is available for tours and is available for rent for special events by contacting the Junior League of Las Vegas at 702-822-6536. 

 

The entry way

 

The Kitchen Floor

 

 

The guest bathroom

 

 

 Light fixtures on the back patio

Special thanks to RoadsidePictures for letting us use these images 

Beth Bergh Tile Work Saved

Our pal Dennis McBride, the Curator of History at the Nevada State Museum in Lorenzi Park, has agreed to be a guest blogger for us.

Here is his first article for us on how he saved the Beth Bergh Tile Work for the State Museum:

 

The Nevada State Museum-Las Vegas recently was able to salvage an important piece of mid-century Las Vegas artwork from the Campos Building on the corner of Bonanza Road and Second Street shortly before the structure was demolished.

The Campos Building was the first state office building built in southern Nevada. Like a lot of such projects, the Campos Building didn’t come to life easily. Las Vegas businessman Harrison Stocks offered the state a plot of land for a southern Nevada state office building at Fremont and Twenty-First Streets around 1951. With that promise in hand, the legislature approved the bond-funded project and then-governor Charles Russell signed the bill. But when it was time to begin construction in 1953, Stocks withdrew his land offer. Editorials in the Review-Journal made much out the state having a building with nowhere to put it, and urged Las Vegans to scour the city for a suitable piece of land.

The City of Las Vegas came up with an undeveloped plot of land on the southeast corner of Second and Bonanza, close to the downtown core. The bond issue for the building was $320,000, and the building, designed by architect Richard Stadelman, promised to be “a modern design … of Class A construction.” Construction began in early January 1954. The cornerstone was laid in a Masonic ceremony on May 8, and state offices had moved into the building by early fall 1954.

Set into the north wall of the state building, facing Bonanza Road, was a five-foot diameter unglazed terra cotta tile bas relief of the Great State of Nevada, designed by ceramicist Beth Bergh, who came to Las Vegas from Reno in 1951. Bergh opened B. B. Originals, a shop and studio at 1122 Bonneville Avenue in August 1954 where she taught classes and produced ceramics for sale. At that time two of her works decorated Las Vegas buildings: the Great Seal on the state building, and a glazed tile mural calledPeaceable Kingdom in the façade of the West Charleston Elementary School [today known as Wasden Elementary]. The last news we have of Bergh is from 1957 when she was preparing an exhibit in her shop.

By 2006 the state building housed the Nevada Department of Parole and Probation and had been named for A. A. “Bud” Campos, chief of the department in 1971-81. The building was targeted for demolition in 2006, and the Public Works Board wanted to be sure Bergh’s artwork was saved if something could be worked out with the Nevada State Museum. The deal was made, and a few days before demolition began, Public Works delivered the seal in a thousand-pound block of concrete cut from the wall.

Unfortunately, the block was delivered upside down, and when workmen tried shaving the concrete to a more manageable size, vibrations from the saw shook the tiles loose. What might have been a disaster, however, turned out to be good luck, since most of the tiles fell out of the wall intact, and those left were easily removed. The work then was to clean, repair, and store the individual tiles until the Nevada State Museum moves into its new building at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve and the bas-relief can be reconstituted and put on display. The job of cleaning and repairing fell to me as Curator of History for the Nevada State Museum-Las Vegas.

For several weeks I brushed and scraped the unglazed tile, chiseled grout and concrete away, scrubbed and repaired as far as possible. Cleaning the artwork revealed several old breaks that had been repaired sometime in the past, including what turned out to be a bullet hole from vandals. Once the seal had been cleaned, I wrapped each piece in acid-free tissue and boxed it in anticipation of the museum’s move next year.

Little more is known of Beth Bergh and her work. Her Peaceable Kingdom at Wasden Elementary School was destroyed sometime in the 1990s, so the Great Seal is the only piece of her local public work to survive.

 

 

If you have any information on Beth Bergh please contact  Lynn@classiclasvegas.com