The Winters Mansion: Washoe Valley's White Mansion

Drive south from Reno on US 395 and the valley opens up beneath the Sierra front: Washoe Lake, the long shoulder of Slide Mountain, and, close beside the highway, a tall nineteenth-century house with a veranda and pointed Gothic windows. Around the Eclection we have always called it the White Mansion. It is the Winters Mansion of the old Winters Ranch, also known as Rancho del Sierra, built in the early 1860s for Theodore Winters, a Comstock-era mining investor and one of the most celebrated racehorse breeders in the West.

A word on that nickname, since we try to say only what we can document: “the White Mansion” is our shop's shorthand, and we have not found it in print. The National Register nomination of 1974 records the house as “presently painted a light green with dark red trim,” a coat applied about 1963 to 1964. Paint changes. What follows is the documented history of the house, its builder, and the ranch around it, told from the roadside and the archive. The house is a private residence, so we keep to the public record and the view from the highway.

The Mansion on the Valley Floor

Washoe Valley sits in the lee of the Carson Range, between Reno and Carson City, and in the 1850s it was farming country. According to Nevada State Historical Marker No. 94, the land that became the Winters Ranch had first been settled by Mormons, and Theodore Winters and his brother bought it from them with money from the Comstock. Sources differ slightly on when: the Nevada Land Trust gives 1857 for Winters's purchase of his Washoe Valley base, while the NoeHill guide to National Register sites dates the family's residence from 1858.

The house the marker describes was “completed about 1864,” and the National Register records the construction years as 1862 to 1864. It stands near US 395 and Winters Creek, and the roadside marker is reached from the northbound lane of Alternate US 395. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 30, 1974, and it is Nevada Historical Landmark 94. The Clampers (E Clampus Vitus) dedicated the marker on September 14, 1985.

Theodore Winters: Comstock Money and Racehorses

Theodore “Thee” Winters was born on September 14, 1823, in Illinois, and died on August 3, 1906, at his Washoe Valley home, according to the Historical Society of Winters and other biographies. He ran a freight line known as “The Winters Express,” and he held interests in the Comstock Lode. NoeHill, summarizing the National Register record, says the house was built “from part ownership in the Ophir Mine.” The wealth that came out of the ground at Virginia City and the Comstock Lode paid for a good many houses in these years, and this one is still standing.

Winters's lasting fame is in the stable. The Historical Society of Winters credits him with introducing thoroughbred racing to the West around 1860, and says he bought his most celebrated stallion, Norfolk, in 1864 from a Kentucky stud farm; the matches between Norfolk and a rival named Lodi became legendary in California racing. A later champion, El Rio Rey, was foaled in 1887 and bred by Winters. According to Wikipedia, he went undefeated as a two-year-old in 1889, won the American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt award for that year, and was called by the New York Times “the greatest colt ever foaled.” After Winters became the Democratic candidate for governor in 1890, he moved his breeding operation to Rancho del Sierra, bringing El Rio Rey with him.

Politics followed money. The state marker says Winters was elected a territorial representative in 1862, and the National Register nomination notes service in the Genoa council and territorial legislature. He ran for governor in 1890 and lost. The campaign, and later water-rights cases, strained the family's finances in his last years, as the biographies of Winters recount.

The House and Its Architecture

Sources agree on the style, and it is not what the “white mansion” nickname suggests. The state marker calls the house a large Gothic-style structure; the National Register nomination and the Society of Architectural Historians' SAH Archipedia call it Carpenter's Gothic: a timber building dressed in the pointed arches and steep gables of Gothic Revival design. The Mark Twain Project's notes name John A. Steele as the architect and builder, planned in 1860 and finished by 1863, a date a little earlier than the National Register's. The nomination refers only to “Mr. Steele.”

The 1974 nomination describes a three-story house of eighteen rooms, with Gothic windows holding colored glass in red, yellow, and blue, a full veranda, exposed brick on the first floor, marble fireplaces, brass chandeliers, and carved walnut furnishings. SAH Archipedia adds a large second-floor ballroom with a vaulted wood ceiling about twenty feet high, and slanted door and fireplace surrounds that it identifies as Egyptian Revival, an uncommon feature in the state. SAH's description of a one-and-one-half-story frame building does not match the nomination's three stories, and we have not been able to reconcile the two.

The house was a sensation when it was new. In 1864 Mark Twain, then writing for the Territorial Enterprise, called it “a handsome dwelling” and remarked, in the words the Mark Twain Project quotes, that “everything is of the best that could be had, and there is no circus flummery.” Behind the house, SAH Archipedia records, Winters laid out a racetrack overlooking the valley. For another Nevada fortune that built a house meant to be seen, read our story of the Lake Mansion in Reno.

The Family and the Ranch

The state marker says the house was the home of Theodore and Maggie Winters “and their seven children.” Biographies count more: the Historical Society of Winters says Winters had twelve children across two marriages. His first wife, Sarah Marshall, and their daughter Helen drowned in 1853 when the steamer Comanche sank, and he married Margaret Martin in 1860. Margaret died on May 30, 1898. We treat the number of children as an unresolved difference between the marker and the biographies.

The size of the ranch is another. The marker and the National Register nomination speak of about 6,000 acres, with an orchard, a racetrack, and large herds of livestock; Wikipedia and the Mark Twain Project give over 4,000 acres. A third biography gives about 1,300 acres of Washoe Valley land within a larger 18,000-acre holding across California and Nevada. The marker lists dairy cattle, beef cattle, work horses, and sheep alongside the racehorses. The nomination itself covers only nine acres, which include the family burial plot and the orchard.

After Winters died in 1906, his daughter Neva kept the ranch until her death in 1953, per the Historical Society of Winters; the property was later sold to the newspaper publisher E. W. Scripps II. The town of Winters, California, is named for the same man.

The Mansion Today

The Winters Mansion is privately owned, and we have no wish to point anyone toward a front door. What the public record allows is this: the house survives, it is on the National Register, and SAH Archipedia notes that after periods of vacancy and deterioration it was being restored as a residence. The right way to see it is the way everyone has for well over a century, from the road. Pull off at the marker, look up toward the Carson Range, and let the gables and lancet windows do the talking. Please keep to the roadside and respect the property.

If the valley's older houses interest you, the Bowers Mansion nearby is a county regional park and is open to visitors in season. Do check current hours before you go.

At a Glance: The Winters Mansion

• Built for Theodore Winters at Rancho del Sierra in Washoe Valley, completed about 1864; National Register records give 1862 to 1864.
• Carpenter's Gothic in style, designed by John A. Steele according to the Mark Twain Project; the 1974 nomination describes three stories and eighteen rooms.
• Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 30, 1974, and designated Nevada Historical Landmark 94.
• Winters (1823 to 1906) made his money in Comstock mining interests and freighting, and made his name breeding thoroughbreds, among them Norfolk and El Rio Rey.
• The ranch is variously described as about 6,000 or about 4,000 acres, and the nickname “the White Mansion” is the shop's own; the nomination records the house painted light green with dark red trim.
• The house is a private residence: view it from the roadside marker only.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Winters Mansion really called the White Mansion?

We use the name as local shorthand, but we have not found it in the sources we consulted, which call the property the Old Winters Ranch, the Winters Mansion, or Rancho del Sierra. The 1974 National Register nomination records the house painted light green with dark red trim, so the color and the nickname should be read as informal.

Who built the Winters Mansion, and when?

Theodore Winters built it. The state marker says it was completed about 1864; the National Register gives 1862 to 1864, and the Mark Twain Project says it was planned in 1860 and finished in 1863. John A. Steele is named as architect and builder.

Can I visit the Winters Mansion?

No. The house is a private residence. The state historical marker beside the highway can be read from the roadside, and the house can be seen from there. Please respect the property and its residents.

What is the connection to Mark Twain and the Comstock?

Winters made his money in Comstock mining interests and freighting, as the Ophir Mine connection and the Winters Express show. Mark Twain, writing for the Territorial Enterprise in 1864, described the new house, according to the Mark Twain Project.

Conclusion

The Winters Mansion is a small lesson in how Nevada's silver became architecture: a freighter and mining investor, a Kentucky stallion, a Carpenter's Gothic house in a valley first settled by Mormon farmers, and a town in California that carries the family name. Whatever color it wears, it is one of the great surviving houses of the territorial years, and it is still visible from the highway for anyone who slows down.

If this sort of history appeals, we are always talking about it at The Eclection, and you can meet us in person at the Reno Antique Faire. To bring a piece of that era home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these Nevada institutions are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• Online Nevada Encyclopedia — articles on Nevada history, people, and places.
• Nevada Historical Society — the state museum and research library for Nevada history.
• Nevada State Historic Preservation Office — the state's historical markers, including Marker No. 94 for the Winters Ranch.