“Now that is a moon….” Mr. Cassette sighed, as we were lying under our Larch, staring up at the sky just the other night. This is his new thing, lying on the still warm ground and one that I have fully embraced. For the spring air is heavy with dreaminess and wonder in this last week and it encourages impetuous acts. A fragrant month, don’t you think? A few days before I eagerly spied on a Midtown Gal wearing a backpack and a floral dress, floating from plant to plant, happily sniffing the colorful gems on her trail through Dundee. I, too, have found so many new creatures and old favorites peaking from under their hiding places and cloistered, secret gardens. All of this magic is still best viewed from the Omaha sidewalks, in my estimation. How else will you peer through that privet hedge to see tea being served to a garden party of seven? As you by now know, these are the very private treasures and Right Under Our Noses Experiences I like to go in search of. It reminds me of childhood, where a walk around my Benson block with a fellow girl detective could last hours. The numerous Virgin Marys, the enviable tire swing, odd blankets for curtains, raised voices behind privacy fences, the pacing pattern a long ago dog made in his front yard, the mysterious house that was Always For Sale, the older woman up the street with deep red lip stick, a bouffant and a see-through nightgown, who seemed to manicure her lawn with sewing scissors. To this day, I marvel that all of this Free Gold does not seem to arouse the least bit of intrigue in some sleepy people—those who yawn as they slough about, ignoring what is right before their hooded eyes and right under their seemingly unsniffable noses. Pleasure Deniers, I say under my breath.
Today I shall like to take you round town, up close and personal, so you can get the real feel of these hidden and not so hidden treasures. After all, it has been a full year since we visited the Delights of Omaha. I do love to imagine the intention, the communication of the various creators—the architects, the homeowners, the gardener, the mason, the do it yourself-ers. And who they are, I do not know because this is not one of those involved obsessive stories. Just a wee obsessive. This will be a lazy, dawdling pilgrimage. But I do believe these property owners and designers are sharing themselves with us, divvying up little declarations. At times, even the architecture itself is telling us a thing or two. And yes, I make assumptions, as well. A word about this wandering preoccupation: This will be a brief but unpardonable diversion from your favorite scrubbing of baseboards chore, the attendance to your cat’s litter box or the work you had planned on next quarter’s taxes. Now square your shoulders and seize the excuse to rush out onto the streets of Omaha with me. I’ve been wanting to show you some longtime favorites.
The Interlude Lounge neon sign. Do we all just love the original Interlude Lounge sign from 1966? The Lude, as it has been affectionately called my whole life, is a true District 66 staple at 7643 Pacific Street. After staring at the best sign around, (a pink bubbling concoction in a martini glass, stately East Coast blue background, perfect font, complete with simple neon, a sturdy pole with almost a Colonial framing) one is impelled to drink a cocktail in this fabulous environ. The whole sense and spirit of the Lude is an invitation to the past, to include those small built-in ashtrays in the women’s restroom stalls. I also tip my hat to the cupolas atop this shopping center, although they used to have a more defining character. http://www.interludelounge.com/
Favorite House. Oh the 706 South 52 Street lovely Juniper arbor dream. This gracious home is from the teens. Miss Cassette simply cannot get enough of this home and its surroundings. The Pfitzer Juniper (the best to make play houses under in the 1970s) and leaning friendly pine trees on this property are so inviting. These homeowners Get It–they have maintained the very kind of trees and shrubs from yesterday that meld perfectly with their home. No mulch in site, no silly under-lighting. Why mess with perfection? I would not change a thing about this property. The awnings. The mossy steps. These are surely unmet friends. I thank you.
Mister Sad Lights at 39th and Dodge. 101 South 39 Street. This little building is currently masquerading as a PayDay Advance and was said to have been built in 1966 but these billboards and lamps could be older still. Thankfully this retaining wall has made a long time friend. The shape of those boards, the framing, the fact that those lamps are still attached? This is gold, people. Solid gold. There are other billboards with their old spot lights down on Leavenworth. 101 South 39 Street was a gas station when I was young and I seem to remember them lighting up. Was this a GINN station? Did I dream it? Mister Sad Lights exudes Loneliness. He is waiting for his comeback.
Mrs. Flowering Gate at 8401 Loveland Drive is a truly lovely structure featuring winding, delicate flowers, fleur de lis and a sanctimonious draping of Boston Ivy. This proud but flirty barrier was built around 2012. According to the Douglas County Assessor this incredible home was erected in 1930. Mrs. Flowering Gate’s spirit is at once intentionally aloof and yet there is a sweetness that brushes your cheek. Or was that the iron grille of the closed gate as I craned my neck to get a better peek? No matter, I felt a welcoming quality.
I stole a glimpse at the fantastic gated hedge enshrouded therein. I about fainted with delight, wanting to see that fine arbor for myself, when a neighbor’s lawn man approached. The man proceeded to tell me that the Loveland area had once been a dairy farm. You don’t say. I feigned shock and confusion in order to hear more of what he knew. What a great guy. Word to the wise: lawn men, gardeners, cleaning ladies and pool crews have the goods. For more on this area, please see Mysteries of Omaha: 8120 Pacific Street
The Red Lion Cocktail Lounge. The old Red Lion jazz club entrance at the Colonial Hotel. After the stories I’d heard about this club at 38th and Farnam Streets, I became entranced. Look at these steps, the forlorn marquee and that fine door. This is a reckless love affair. Staring at it might involve my ruin. Yes, it is worth it.
Sleeping Beauty at 7823 Pierce Street. A true 1941 storybook abode complete with a dappled garden. Dwarf Alberta Spruce are ensconced at the door with a Red Leaf Plum lending a bit of hued shade. I have stared at this Sleeping Beauty storybook home again and again. I have bent down, squinted my eyes and scrutinized it, down to the tiniest of details and I have found no fault. I believe if one fell asleep in this precious front garden, it would surely reverse one’s age by twenty years at least.
The Los Angeles Apartments at 810 South 49th Street. I believe these were built in 1959. Is this a small warehouse annex to a dry cleaning business or a motel? The windows! The divine railing details. The obvious garages turned to ground floor apartments. How is this Omaha? I love the teetering, suspension bridge walkway connecting this MCM apartment building to the stucco apartments next door. It looks like an LA apartment complex where a very cool teen might have laid on his bedroom floor and played old punk records. Or the television dream set where Veronica Mars lived with her detective father in Neptune. I will confide that this L shaped building has whispered to me that she would like to have another twin building and together they would encircle a turquoise pool, where plastic flamingos stand guard as older men in straw hats and Hawaiian shirts smoke and discuss the horses. There remained no question in my mind about the daydream Los Angeles Apartments on 49th. I had a shrewd suspicion that this would be the perfect place to be if I ever needed somewhere to hide.
Dewey Drop Mansion. The Mysterious and Lovely 3722 Dewey Avenue gated entry. Almost an Asian feel. Did you know that Dewey Avenue used to be called Half Howard Street? It is oddly true. Mr. Cassette adores the Dewey Drop secret garden. I need to look inside this home to make sure it is as glorious as I imagine. The grille work on the windows are inconceivable. This whole heavenly corner must be reconnoitered at once and then…. sang to by beautiful women in long flowing dresses while harps are sounding. Miss Cassette will be back to do a proper investigation on this splendid property.
Barnhart Press. I’ve always loved the Barnhart Press logo and orangey-redcicle teeny tiny, irregular tile wall at 2615 Farnam Street. I have heard that Barnhart has closed up shop, sold their buildings on Farnam Street and are gone, which saddens me greatly. Word on the street is that a developer has bought up these parcels and has big plans. This Scrumptious Tile reminds me of the interior tile walls at Crossroads Shopping Center in the 1970s. This solid building is from 1920 but looks like a fabulous MCM renovation to me, complete with pale stone block tiles, mod squares, a lit overhang, all serving to highlight that fab blast of orange-red. Fantastic! **Addendum of July 1, 2017** Barnhart Press did not go out of business. They moved to 11616 I Street!
Go take your family photo there before this whole area is razed. Every band is doing it.
The Curious One at 123 South 39th Street. This house is apparently from 1890, according to the Douglas County Assessor, sometimes inaccurate. She is crying for an indepth My Omaha Obsession investigation but in the mean time I’m obsessing over this medley of windows and architectural messages. One must savor the full range of complexity here.
There is a strong, storm-tossed energy at 123 and one that I keep coming back to. Is it the unsteadiness to the eye caused by decades of architectural renovation? I must know more. The Curious One is engrossing to me. I can’t sleep.
Did I mention that she has these proud antique Pointer dog yard lanterns? I searched and searched online to trace these cunning lamps. Goose eggs.
The Ambassador Apartments back stairwell. 109 South 49th Avenue, properly, but these are the insiders’ exit route. I love the way these back steps feel. This is where I used to smoke my cigarettes, complain about the world and pretend I lived a glamorous 1940s life. Truthfully it was more of a 1990s Laverne and Shirley situation with a couple of galpals. Mr. Cassette and I would return to live here almost ten years later. I have told him again and again that I would move back in an instant. He won’t let me. If one is very quiet and holds their breath, one can hear these Catalpa trees growing. I know this to be true. Notice the different sized coal and wood chutes…or are those ice chutes? I don’t know. Those lovely little original Ambassador stairwell lanterns. Such a solid and perfect back stoop.
The Iron Gates at about 48th and Howard. 609 South 48th Street is a manufacturing plant, with the original structure being built in 1912. I mistakenly thought it was a part of the Omaha Steel Castings property, north of it, at 4605 Farnam Street.
The Omaha Steel Castings parcel was sold to UNMC but this mystery property with the fabulous iron gate remains privately owned. But for how long?
Cousins It and It stand guard with their hairy tendrils of Sweet Autumn Clematis, the Holy Sepulture Cemetery to the west.
If you stand and take it all in, you can hear the banging and clanging of what this might have been in its day, a mighty plant. And no one will see you looking peculiar. Listen! There are one hundred blustering echoes trapped behind these fences. Caught between UNMC on the hill and Sepulture Cemetery on the west and the true Saddle Creek in between, this slim parcel of land has seen a thing or two. There is also silence in here. And it is good.
The Mullen Mansion at 10604 Frances Street. Are you holding yourself? Would you look at those precious tulips? To me the woods are enchanting. I cannot imagine being able to live within a woodland, surrounded by all this torturous beauty, the excruciating corridors of the trees. I am slowly being tortured since finding this property. It calls to me.
If I were to walk across this heavenly plot I would faint with joy and then wake up and die. My friend, Maura, a fellow Omaha Detective, tipped me off to this gorgeous home in her investigation to find the true Arthur Mullen house from the The Curious Case of the French Fairytale Cottage: Part One. I owe her a debt of gratitude for showing me the way. As for this exalted estate, it unfortunately, has had a profound effect upon Miss Cassette and I simply cannot stop churning over the view of this drive. Investigation forthcoming, fellow gumshoes. Until then I suppose I could just lie down and be consumed by fitful dreams of a breathtaking mansion in the woods, sprinkled with tulip splendor.
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Thanks for the springtime look around town! Pleasantly surprised to see my childhood homestead in this installment. Parents still tend to Sleeping Beauty, definitely a d.i.y. labor of love (and a short stroll from the ‘Lude). They’d surely take pride in your appreciation.
Always enjoy reading about your obsessions and investigations.
Cheers.
HA! Are you ever in luck. I lived in the main floor of 123 So 39th for about a dozen years back in the 90s. What would you like to know?
I’ll tell you what I remember from doing research some 20+ years ago. The house was actually build about 1910 and originally belonged to a man named Stull who was in insurance if I recall. The interesting thing about Stull is that he moved away to California and started working in the motion picture industry but was back in Omaha many years later and suffered a fatal heart attack in a hotel here The house obviously is a bastardized Queen Anne and I was actually living there when the well-meaning owner placed aluminum siding vertically on top of the fishscaled turret, effectively rendering it into a silo. The turret has a leaded window and at certain times of the day there were prisms of light that filled the room and gave a really spectacular lightshow. The main floor had the main entrance and contains what would have been the library and the parlor. All original mahogany floors and paneling and an enormous fireplace which still worked when I lived there. There was NO insulation – you could place your hand on the paneling and feel the breeze in the winter. The kitchen and bath are on the south side of the building and were added on during the knotty pine craze and were so cold in the winter that the INTERIOR pipes would freeze so you needed to leave the cabinets open and the faucet dripping. I returned from lunch once and the secretary had taken a message from the owner telling me not to worry but they had accidentally started a small fire in the kitchen while attempting to thaw a pipe with a blow torch. lol. One closet had no floor…literally…my cat disappeared for hours down into it while I pleaded for him to come out. No circuit beakers – still the old ceramic fuses when I lived there and using the microwave and an electric can opener could blow a fuse. The fuse box was located down some widow-maker stairs in one of the most frightening basements I’ve seen and did not have an overhead light, so you needed to take a flashlight with you. Oh! and the fireplace had no flue…just sort of a series of mazes in the chimney and the same cat went up inside. When it rained I opened several umbrellas and placed them upside down to protect the floor.
If I recall there were five apartments and all were quite interesting. The building though was so chopped up that it was hard to imagine it in its original condition and frankly much of it looked like it hadn’t been carefully planned out or professionally executed. And now it looks like it might even be in worse shape. Even with all of those problems, I still look back on the place I spent my dating years.
Diane, this is amazing. I keep rereading it. I can’t wait to dig in after the mysteries I’m currently working on. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome. It was great reliving it. The houses on the same side of the street were mostly original. Immediately across the street is a high rise building and 99% of those living there were retired OPS school teachers, including “Fran” the head librarian for OPS who was 90 and brilliant. She grew up in the area and remembered Sarah Joslyn driving around in her car and noting that Sarah always seemed to prefer her dog over her adopted daughter, Violet, but was rarely allowed to play with the neighborhood children. Both that high rise and the small apartment complex to the South took up the footprint where Henry Doorly’s original home was.
I’d forgotten to mention that my apartment also had a jut-in where the old dumbwaiter would have been. The main floor is divided front to back and the 2nd apartment on the main floor was where the old kitchen and servant stairs would have been. The stairs were enclosed in a closet so you had a set of stairs which literally disappeared into the ceiling. It also had a fabulous green mosaic fireplace with a very unusual brass insert. Since the front door only had access to Unit #1 and no one could ever find that dark covered stairway on the side of the house, my doorbell would ring at all hours and it was loud enough to wake the dead (and everyone else living there.) The very top unit had a perfectly round room. I also remember a cabinet on the top floor which housed a large wavy glass and nickel reservoir tank for the steam heat.
I couldn’t begin to explain the oddball low hanging roof line sagging off to the right because there is a set of old concrete stairs leading down under it. Part of the foundation under it has sort of an old limestone terrace which was always mossy and was a good 20 degrees cooler even on the hottest day. If you return there look down under it and you’ll see what I mean. I’d always planted lots of things in the yard and I adored that huge old oak tree. I’d probably still be there but the neighborhood was in decline, the Travel Inn was still across Dodge street so police and ambulances in the area were common. Additionally, the building seemingly had no one who could maintain it any longer, code violations were commonplace and so I left for many years. I moved back into the neighborhood about five years ago. I hope someday the house will have an owner or at least another tenant living on the main floor that loves it as much as I used to.
It was MY delight to start the day by reading your post. It should inspire every thinking Omahan to keep an eye out for what is unique and special in our city.
Around 2010, my then-3-year-old daughter and I once took a neighborhood walk by that mansion at 3722 Dewey Avenue – – and we spied a Burrowing Owl on the ground, right near that peaked back door entranceway. Couldn’t have been 3 feet from the little bird, but he must have felt safe from us behind that imposing wrought iron fence, and didn’t budge! He won the staredown, of course, and we moved on.
This is the kind of image that somehow sticks in your memory without ever fading…
I lived in the Mullen Mansion from 1956 to 1966
Although I can’t offer any personal experiences with the locations you mention, I love reading your work! Thanks for doing this and keep it up!
I live down the street from the Mullen mansion, 111th and Frances. I’ve only lived here for 5 years, but I have always been so enamored with it’s beauty! I drive past it every morning on my way to take my daughter to school. So lovely to see the beautiful tulips and surrounding area so early in the morning!
I enjoy following you sleuthing through Omaha’s neighborhood treasures. I hate to think of the many that have fallen to disrepair or progress!
So much to enjoy and take in! I will be looking for these sights. Especially the Barnhart Press building. It used to be KMTV when my dad was there. Dr. Sanguinary would have his fishbowl out there during the MDA telethons over Labor Day weekend. When KMTV was sold to Journal Broadcasting, they moved out to the current location on Mockingbird. And while I do like the Interlude sign, I must take issue with your assessment. The best bar sign in town is The Green Onion (although it needs a little looking after).
Love your articles. Keep up the good work.