The McHenry Mansion is a Victorian-Italianate historic house museum situated in the historic downtown of Modesto, California. It was originally built in 1883 as a residence for Robert McHenry, a prominent local resident.
History
In 1880, Robert McHenry purchased five lots on the corner of 15th and I street in Modesto, California for what would become the McHenry Mansion. McHenry hired Jeremiah Robinson, a Stockton contractor, to design and construct the mansion. Construction of the McHenry Mansion began in 1882 and was completed in 1883. The mansion was constructed in the High Victorian Italianate style that was popular at the time. After construction, Robert McHenry lived in the mansion with his wife, Matilda until his death in 1890. With the death of Matilda in 1896, their son, Oramil McHenry, moved into the mansion with his wife Louise and their three children. After their divorce in 1901, Oramil married a woman named Myrtie Conneau in 1902. Conneau came into ownership of the McHenry mansion following Oramil's death in 1906 due to stomach cancer. The McHenry Mansion changed ownership again when Myrtie remarried William Langdon in 1908. Subsequently, the mansion became the Elmwood Sanitarium in 1919, then the Langdon apartments in 1923. The McHenry Mansion continued to be used as an apartment building until 1976, when it came on the market. At the time, Modesto was rapidly losing much of its historical architecture, so Aileen and Julio Gallo purchased the mansion through the Julio R. Gallo Foundation to preserve it. The McHenry Mansion was restored and opened to the public in 1983 and has since been open as a historical landmark with available tours. In 2011 the front of the McHenry Mansion was damaged in a major fire and has since been restored to its original state.
References
Bibliography
Stanley Bare, Colleen (1985). The McHenry Mansion: Modesto's Heritage. McHenry Mansion Foundation Press. ISBNÂ 9780961592615.Â
External links
- Official site
- McHenry Museum Official Site
- HistoricModesto.com
