Original Governor's Mansion

Montana’s Original Governor’s Mansion was built in 1888 as a private residence for the William Chessman family, then became home to the Peter Larson family and the Harfield Conrad family before the state purchased it in 1913 along with much of the Conrads’ furnishings. Until 1959 it served as the official residence of Montana’s governors, their families, and service staffs. During the following decade it was sometimes vacant and sometimes used for state offices, with its interior subdivided by temporary walls. A citizen group began restoration in 1969 and returned the building to state control in 1980. Today it appears much as it did in 1913, when Governor Samuel V. Stewart, his wife, and their three young daughters moved in. Designed by Hodgson, Stem and Welter, architects of the Lewis and Clark County Courthouse and many Helena homes, the Queen Anne style structure has a fanciful, irregular outline with gables, turrets, chimneys, balconies, and dormers. The style was one of several romantic, nostalgic modes popular as America moved into industrialization and mass production. Although the ground floor rooms hosted the public at official functions, the upper floors were very much a family home, which Governor Stewart’s executive secretary called “a home of democracy … an American home—a plain American home, if you please—like thousands of homes in this country.”

Helena, Montana · United States