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Newsletter from Montana
February 2006
If you always wanted to own a
historic home in a quaint mountain town, here is your chance. You are the
first to know that the Flager House in the Hi-Bug District of Red Lodge
came on the market. Actually it is my home, since I will join my husband
in Minnesota, but I will keep an office in the Red Lodge area. At any
rate, the plaque in front of the home tells this story:
"Architect Seth Hunneywell designed and built this neo-colonial, 2
1/2 story home for the Flager's who lived here with their four children
from October 1902 to 1911. Costing approximately $3,500 and boasting all
the modern conveniences, its eight large, airy rooms and third-floor
billiard parlor were heated by a steam plant located in the basement.
Alfred Flager served on both the school board and as an alderman. He
pursued the creation of a city water system, was instrumental in
organizing the telephone company, and was a director of the Red Lodge
Building and Loan Association. Thomas Pollard, proprietor of the Pollard
Hotel, was one of the illustrious renters in the years to follow. The
home features an oak staircase with a landing for musicians, a pressed
aluminum ceiling in the kitchen, maple floors downstairs, clear pine
floors upstairs and a richly carved fireplace mantel in the living
room."
The original moldings around doors and windows are still in place, along
with picture rails and ornate door knobs. The billiard room in the third
story was converted to the master bedroom; the attic was finished to
serve as hallways from the master bedroom to the top of the tower, which
serves as master bath with a double shower and three windows. Just about
all rooms in the home receive light from two sides, which makes it so
bright and pleasant. The wallpaper throughout the house was imported from
England, since the home is of English design. The carriage house was
expanded into a 3-car heated garage with a cedar clad greenhouse or solar
room behind it facing south, giving a hot tub (not installed) a private
little place. A new sidewalk and curbs were poured around this corner lot
and the driveway has in-floor heat to melt off the snow and ice. The
brand new landscaping has underground automatic sprinklers and there is a
small deck between the garage and the home.
All in all there are about 3,576 sqft in the home, which includes the
unheated mudroom. The solar room is another 108 sqft, the open porch is
156 sqft and the deck between the home and garage is 256 sqft. The three
car garage can accommodate two large SUVs or trucks and one smaller
SUV. The home is flooded with sunshine in winter and in summer it
stays nice and cool. We had found 100 pressed tin toilet lids for
outhouses in the basement, they will convey with the home :-) One thing
about historic homes, they don't make them anymore...
http://montanahereicome.com/Hauser
If you need financing for this $ 575,000 home, starting this year, Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest conventional mortgage loan
purchasers, have raised their single mortgage loan limit from $ 359,650
to $ 417,000. This increase allows homebuyers and current home-owners to
qualify for a mortgage rate with a lower interest rate. When we borrow
more than $ 417,000 the loan falls into a category called
"jumbo" loans. These jumbo mortgages carry higher rates than
conforming loans because they are not guaranteed.
If you are over 62 (better yet over 80) and would like to get a big chunk
of cash out of your home to buy a second home or just for fun without
having to make any payments at all (until after your death, that is),
check out the reverse mortgage as explained on this AARP site:
http://www.aarp.org/money/revmort/
Since Thomas Pollard used to rent a room in our house, here is the
history of the Pollard Hotel as told by his daughter Barbara Pollard
Sanford:
"Certainly a great deal of excitement must have been generated with
the building of the first brick structure in Red Lodge in 1893. The
Spofford Hotel was built at the point mid-way between the train passenger
depot and the thickly settled portion of the city. It was described in
the Livingston Herald as handsomely furnished in pine, hand-oiled and
costing very close to $20,000.
Thomas F. Pollard took possession of the thirty-five room hotel in 1902,
renaming it The Pollard and adding twenty-five rooms. There was a
spacious lobby, dining room, bar room with card and billiard tables,
well-equipped kitchen and a laundry, with bowling alley and barbershop in
the basement.
The dining room was a lovely room in the early days with fine
furnishings, high quality hotel linens, dishes, silverware and glassware.
In the early days the hotel was noted for its excellent cuisine and
specialized in broiled lobsters and other dishes suitable even to the
most particular gourmets. The bar room was in front (it later became the
Post Office). It had a beautifully carved mahogany bar. A popular feature
before the First World War was the free lunch at midnight, served from a
huge platter with a domed cover. At holiday time, I recall the elegant
Tom and Jerry bowl and mugs for that tasty drink.
The Hotel's telephone number from about 1903 was "1". When the
Bell people were making arrangements for their installations in Red
Lodge, one of the "higher up" men got into a little trouble one
night and was jailed (could that have been Mr. Flager?). My dad bailed
him out and he was grateful and told my father that the hotel would have
the very first number.
This famous hotel has been the gathering place of political, theatrical
and many celebrated personalities. Names such as William Jennings Bryan,
the famed silver-tongued orator; General Miles, the Indian Fighter;
William and Marcus Daly, the copper kings, dotted the early registers.
Buffalo Bill Cody spent many an evening in the lobby swapping tales with
local old timers. Calamity Jane would on occasion interrupt the quietness
of this old lodging place and Liver Eatin' Johnston, noted Indian scout,
who lived here in the early days, occasionally frequented the
establishment.
My father died in 1942, and my mother stayed on until she sold the hotel
in 1946 to Mrs. Lottie Salk. Thus ended a long period of living in and
loving The Pollard Hotel. -Barbara Pollard Sanford "
Did Barb mention Calamity Jane? That is the lady who got arrested in Red
Lodge for not wearing a garter. Another famous personality who visited
the hotel was the Sundance Kid, Harry Longworth. Unfortunately, he
visited with a gun in his hand. He robbed the bank, which was located on
the corner of the hotel, while Pollard guests watched. The infamous
robber was caught, but later escaped. Since that time, guns have been
banned from the hotel.
If you enjoy history, there are some terrific old photographs posted at
the Pollard Hotel's website
The city of Red Lodge is now developing
walking and hiking trails, some are in place; some are in the planning stage:
City of Red Lodge
The hiking trails around Red Lodge are breathtakingly beautiful; I posted the maps and descriptions for those on my website, and I just added
20 photos there which my daughter Tuula took while she was hiking along the creeks, in the forest meeting a moose and up on the Beartooth Pass. Tuula is now at the University of Oregon, studying all kinds of interesting things to eventually become a photo journalist. If you have a relative who is still on the fence if they want to join you in your venture to move to Montana, show them those photos!
If you click on Tuula's name, you can send her a comment if you like.
Another feat of the Old West are those horse harnesses made by the Native Americans out of seed beads. The seed beads that are associated with North American Indians first appeared in the Northwest during the middle of the 19th century. Beads offered greater design flexibility and color variety than did traditional basketry weaving techniques. They subsequently encouraged the creation of a new regional style of geometric decoration that adorned clothing, personal accessories, and horse gear. At the same time, a tradition of figurative beadwork also developed and flourished. The earliest known examples show floral designs and horse imagery. Other early subjects included deer, elk, and birds. We often imagine this bright beadwork to represent items produced for sale to outsiders, but this was seldom the case. Cindy Walker makes museum quality pieces to order. Over the last 27 years she also taught classes in beading and won many awards for her work. Her Native American model horse regalia, water color and acrylic paintings, carved wood spirit horses, open fire pottery and other work is on display in private collections, galleries and shops throughout the US and Europe. Cindy also makes models and costumes for models of 1/9 , 1/6 , 1/12, 1/32 and smaller scales model Native American saddle sets. She also crafts customized model horses and dolls, full size beaded horse tack, needle felted Jack Russell terriers and horses, carved wooden "spirit horses." I made a
website for her, take a look.
If you would like to read up on a bead trader who had the beads manufactured in Europe, sold them to the Native Americans and took their artwork in trade to be sold again in Europe,
here is his story.
Ricochet is one of Britain's leading independent television production companies producing high quality factual and entertainment programs for broadcast by major networks in both the UK and US. They are still looking for a family relocating to Montana and making things work. It might be profitable for you to contact them, if you want to start a new business, for sure. Send them an
email
http://www.ricochet.co.uk/html/company.htm
They have one story they are going to film, but now they want to expand and make more!
I found a statistic about the home prices around Montana
Great Falls, MT home price rose in 2005 9.3%,
Missoula, MT home price rose in 2005 9.6%
Billings, MT home price rose in 2005 10.4%
I did something similar for the Red Lodge area:
2004 - 138 homes sold, home prices rose 11%
2005 - 112 homes sold, home prices rose - 27%
Right now there are 58 homes offered for sale and the median home price is $ 335,000
And here is a website where you can find the value of homes in YOUR neighborhood
http://zillow.com/
Type in your city, and on the map zoom into your neighborhood. It will show you the value of each home! Totally amazing. Of course they didn't have Red Lodge, but they did have Billings, even though their overview for the states did not have Billings listed.
The folks at Berkeley University in California are introducing us to a group approach for finding extra-terrestrial life with their SETI@home project. They have now teamed up with NASA to analyze space dust returned by the Stardust spacecraft after traveling through the comet Wild2. You can participate in this by signing up at http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
Starting in March, participants will comb through pictures to find an estimated 45 interstellar particles. This is the equivalent of finding 45 ants on a football field (which would take NASA 20 years without public help). The discoverers of the desired particles will appear as a co-author for scientific paper outlining the first studies interstellar dust particles. In case you know a school teacher, this might be a great class project as well!
Barry Dobek in Lethbridge, Alberta, is a retired school teacher and is now in the business of buying Trust Deeds for investors. So if you did some owner financing, or have a Trust Deed, but would rather have the cash in hand, send Barry an
Email and get a quote.
Microsoft, who gives out the free email accounts at hotmail, now also offers free websites for small business owners with less than 10 employees. It includes 5 free email addresses. So even if you have just a one horse operation, get yourself a web presence so your neighbors can find you. The free, ad-supported version includes 30 megabytes of online storage, 10 gigabytes of data transfer a month, basic Web traffic reports and up to five e-mail accounts with 2 gigabytes of storage per account.
http://officelive.microsoft.com/
If you need help making a website, take a look at the software packages from
http://www.coffeecup.com
These programs are as easy to use as 1, 2 and forget the 3!
I bought some of their software myself and I am experimenting with the flash player and similar programs to make my website more fun and easier to use.
Here is the link to install the latest version from Macromedia (Acrobat)
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
The website for my house is my pilot project. Please let me know if that presentation is a nuisance or a help. I also tweaked my logo on that page. My eagle is flying from the mountains to the lakes in Minnesota. I am licensed in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and I am working on getting my license for Minnesota. My husband is working on getting me a faster airplane :-)
At any rate, the grass turns green on March 17th in Montana; you need to hurry to catch a glimpse of it before it turns brown again! Or to say it with the words of "Dr. Seuss:"
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
Wear something green and don't get pinched!
:-)
Best Regards,
Dorothea Lowe, Broker
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