Coloradans lucky enough to tour the governor’s mansion during this holiday season found a refreshing new emphasis on inclusiveness designed by Colorado’s first lady, Jeannie Ritter.
The front room, decorated with African art, featured a Kwanzaa theme. Much of the art was collected by the Ritters during their three years in Zambia, where they ran a food distribution and nutrition center as lay missionaries for the Catholic Church.
Native American art — including a nativity that showed one of the Wise Men bearing gifts of corn, a buffalo blanket and a peace pipe to the Christ child — was in the library. Nearby, a Hanukkah room contained antique menorahs and dreidels.
The traditional Colorado blue spruce dominated the Palm Room. It was decorated with the Colorado (Scottish) Tartan, ornaments featuring the mansion, and the state fish (greenback cutthroat trout), the state flower (Rocky Mountain columbine) and state butterfly (Colorado hairstreak butterfly).
In an interview, Mrs. Ritter said her favorite was the military tree. Erected to honor people in the service, it was decorated with military stars and ornaments from the five main branches of the U.S. military, as well as ornaments in red, white and blue, and her father’s sailor cap from the Navy.
Mrs. Ritter used the decoration of the mansion to kick off a new initiative, the Governor’s Residence Preservation Fund, which is designed to help celebrate the mansion’s centennial in 2008 and to open the official residence to more Coloradans.
The mansion, formerly home to the Cheesman and Boettcher families and such dignitaries as Charles Lindbergh and future president Dwight D. Eisenhower, almost met a very different fate from the one it now serves. The Boettchers offered the house to the state for use as a governor’s residence after their death. Several state agencies rejected the gift, and it appeared that the mansion would be sold and razed. But in 1959, then-Gov. Stephen McNichols accepted the building, and it has been the residence of most Colorado governors since that time.
Over the years, the mansion has suffered from deterioration and has required renovation. However, “The Owenses left it in much improved shape,” Mrs. Ritter said, noting that Frances Owens remodeled the Carriage House to serve as a visitor center.
But it bothers her that while the mansion is “for all the people of Colorado,” it is rarely open to the public. It’s currently open for tours for only a few hours each week in summer months, Mrs. Ritter said. She wants to open it in the fall for tours, perhaps on Saturdays, so that more people can visit.
“Bill hosted an event for the legislature and city and county officials recently,” she said, “and many of them commented they had never been in the mansion before.” Even sadder, she said, is that people who live outside the metro area are even less likely to have visited “their house.”
“I want the mansion to be more accessible and inclusive. I want to tell stories associated with it so its history has more meaning,” she said. “There’s more to it than the history of the Boettcher family. There were the people who worked here and the artisans who built it.” Mrs. Ritter said she plans to showcase their stories during the mansion’s centennial year.
Colorado residents wishing to purchase a Boettcher mansion ornament or note cards can e-mail grpfund@ . To make a tax-deductible donation to the Governor’s Residence Preservation Fund, contact the Denver Foundation (www.denverfoundation.org), temporary host of the fund. It’s a small way to help build Colorado’s spirit of inclusiveness while also celebrating the 100th birthday of the governor’s mansion and making it truly “the people’s house.”
Susan Thornton (smthornton@aol.com) served 16 years on the Littleton City Council, including eight years as mayor. Her column appears twice a month.
