Samuel T. Hauser, a pioneer entrepreneur and financier, built this twenty-nine-room residence in 1885 on Helena’s west side, where it became one of the earliest great mansions and part of Montana’s broader history in the same year President Cleveland appointed him territorial governor. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena bought the home in 1913 and presented it to Bishop John P. Carroll. After Bishop Carroll’s death in 1925, three succeeding bishops lived there. Following the 1935 earthquakes that displaced the Sisters of Charity in Helena, the house became the convent of the teaching order, and its bedrooms were partitioned into thirty-two sleeping rooms. In 1969, the Diocese sold the home to former Governor Tim Babcock and his wife, Betty, who restored it to its former grandeur. Its design features gables, dormers, and porches with carved wood, windows trimmed with locally quarried porphyry, black walnut wainscoting, parquet floors of cherry, walnut, and oak, an intricately carved oak stairway in the grand hall, and nine fireplaces, including one with a ceramic hearth depicting Hauser family scenes. Two stained glass panels crafted in Germany by the designer of the St. Helena Cathedral windows and installed by Bishop Carroll in 1915 remain intact, and in 1975 the mansion received a Burlington House Award for American Homes for taste and ingenuity in interior furnishing.