Harvesting Historical Riches

"Close to Creatures and Mountains":
Preserving a Legacy of Excellence at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School

Originally published in Colorado History NOW, June 2005

Actress Julie Harris must believe in Karma.  Best known for her starring role in East of Eden opposite James Dean, the leading lady earned five Tony Awards and three Emmys during a career that has spanned six decades.  Harris accepted these accolades with the grace of an established performer who understands the fact that winners have a responsibility to nurture their profession.  In other words, she never misses an opportunity to thank her teachers or help an aspiring young actor.  We know this to be true because proof of her generosity is on file at the State Historical Fund.

On July 30, 1994, Harris penned a letter to the Fund supporting the nomination of the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp to the National Register of Historic Places.  In a cursive style that mimicked her stately monogrammed letterhead, she wrote, “I attended the camp when I was fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen and the classes and guidance from Charlotte Perry inspired me and led me to these 50 years in the theatre, television, and film work.  I treasure every one of those years.”

The Keeper of the National Register listed the camp in 1995, thanks to a well-written nomination prepared with financial support from the State Historical Fund and moral support from former students like Harris.  Though the camp’s listing was not a surprise, it was remarkable, given the fact that its period of significance reaches into the not-so-distant past.  Ordinarily, historic resources that have achieved significance within the last fifty years are not eligible for listing.  However, the National Park Service will consider properties of “exceptional importance.”

The camp’s exceptional significance derives from its association with two strong women with a dream.  Dance and theatre pioneers Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield founded the camp in 1913 at Lake Eldora, Colorado, but moved to Steamboat Springs the following year to escape young men from Denver who were intent upon spying on the young, scantily clad “nymphs.” The pristine forested location in Strawberry Park appealed to Perry, who wanted the camp’s site to convey “a sense of the close brotherhood of the arts and of the values of a way of life close to creatures and mountains and out-of-doors.”

The camp’s curriculum reflected the connection between art and nature by combining dance, drama, and music classes with camping trips, tennis, swimming, and horseback riding.  This cutting-edge instruction attracted the best young performers in the nation.  Many of the students—including Julie Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Lee Horsley, Lee Remick, and Joan Van Ark—applied what they learned during careers that helped shape modern cinema, television, theatre, and dance.

Mindful of this legacy, the school’s board of directors initiated a comprehensive historic preservation program that will protect the camp’s historic resources and ensure their continued usefulness.  Executive Director June Lindenmayer supervised the work and is committed to preserving all of the camp’s significant structures.

“Alumni show up here all the time,” she says.  “And they have amazing memories of how this place has impacted them.  That’s why it’s so important to save the buildings.  Because if we don’t, the great things we do here can’t continue.”

Work began in 1995 with a preservation master plan and the National Register nomination.  Those documents have served as a foundation for further work, including the development of historic structure assessments and brick and mortar projects.  Ongoing projects include the restoration of the most important building on campus—the Main Lodge.

Reportedly designed by Perry and Mansfield themselves, the two-story Main Lodge exemplifies the camp’s vernacular rustic architectural style.  Built in 1918, it continues to serve its original function as a kitchen and dining hall for students, faculty, and the public.  Jan Kaminsky of Mountain Architecture and Tyke Pierce Construction have managed the project’s design and construction elements—including a new foundation and roof—in accordance with a previously prepared historic structure assessment.  The work will wrap up early this summer.

In the future, Lindenmayer hopes to complete additional work on the Main Lodge and other buildings, including some of the student houses.  Who knows, the next Dustin Hoffman or Julie Harris might be bunked in one of those log cabins right now.

BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor

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