Stay & Play
Copper King Mansion
by by Randy Mink
With my interests in history, antiques and the Gilded Age in particular, I am always ready to tour a grand Victorian home and often fantasize about living there, lounging in the lap of luxury. In Butte, an old copper mining town in the Rocky Mountains of Southwest Montana, my lofty dreams came true.
At the Copper King Mansion, in fact, I slept in the very bedroom of the original owner, one of the world’s wealthiest men in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Master Suite is one of four guest rooms on the second floor of this house museum/bed & breakfast.
A guided mansion tour is included in the rate for overnight guests, who are free to roam the first and second floors on their own. Hand-carved woodwork, oriental rugs, stained-glass windows, soaring frescoed ceilings and ornate plasterwork set the tone. Every nook and cranny is filled with china, glassware, porcelain figurines and other period treasures.
The red-brick mansion, completed in 1888, was the showplace of copper magnate/politician William A. Clark (1839-1925). A portrait above the fireplace, depicting a fierce-looking Clark, faced my bed, a masterpiece of burled walnut framed by an arch of fancy sycamore woodwork. The spacious suite features an octagonal sitting room with another fireplace. Above the bathroom’s clawfoot tub is a framed display of antique hair combs and beaded purses.
The current owner, whose grandmother bought the house from the Catholic Church in 1953, lives on the third floor. She and her daughter love to share stories about their home during breakfast in the formal dining room.
