Culture

So long, history: Boulder City losing historic building

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This is a photo of the Boulder City hospital and doctors’ residence taken in 1932. The hospital was closed in 1935 after Six Companies Inc. finished Hoover Dam. It responded in 1943 to care for the war wounded.
Boulder City / Hoover Dam Museum
The Old Boulder City Hospital, constructed in 1931

The Old Boulder City Hospital, constructed in 1931

“You can’t help falling in love with it when you go there,” said Realtor Karen Short in a 2009 newspaper article about the Old Boulder City Hospital perched on a hill overlooking Lake Mead. “It’s a great opportunity for someone who has a great idea.”

But love and great ideas don’t always pan out when it comes to old buildings, including those listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as is the 1931 hospital built to care for workers erecting the Hoover Dam.

After many incarnations—hospital, museum, wellness retreat and then the Western diocese of the Orthodox Church—the building is facing its end. Developer Randolph Peter Schams (and Boulder City Planning Commissioner) purchased the property and plans to demolish it, replacing it with residential development. Escrow closes in August.

Though a group of advocates is petitioning to save the landmark on the website change.org—and Schams has said he’s open to someone buying and renovating it—time is running out.

Original wooden-framed windows inside the Life-Giving Springs Retreat Center, formerly known as Wellspring.  The historic building was constructed in 1931 as the Boulder City Hospital and is being sold by the Orthodox Church.

Original wooden-framed windows inside the Life-Giving Springs Retreat Center, formerly known as Wellspring. The historic building was constructed in 1931 as the Boulder City Hospital and is being sold by the Orthodox Church.

It’s an unfortunate end to the property that received its historic designation in 1982 while owned by the Episcopal Sisters of Charity, the group that purchased the hospital in the 1970s and ran it as a wellness retreat for more than 20 years. Sitting empty and boarded up at 701 Park Place in the Boulder City Historic District, it would need a good chunk of money, solid planning and lots of love and dedication to be saved.

The white brick and stucco building with a gabled, tile roof was built by Six Companies, a group of construction companies formed to build the Hoover Dam.

“It’s one of the most significant structures in the Historic District—one of the very few structures standing from the Six Companies itself,” says historian Dennis McBride, who grew up in Boulder City, was born at the old Boulder City Hospital and refers to it as a lovely minimalist structure. “It’s a tremendous loss to the community.”

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