The land north of downtown Lincoln and Salt Creek did not develop as quickly as the land east and south, partially because of simply having to bridge the stream but also due to its frequent flooding.
What is mostly thought of as Belmont began to come into its own with the Lincoln Airforce Base and then grew rapidly. Along the way another of today’s extant, hidden mansions appeared.
Shortly after Lincoln became Nebraska’s first capital, Elder E. M. Lewis secured a federal land grant north of Salt Creek and platted Lincoln Heights as a proposed Baptist community.
In 1868 Lewis built a house at what today would be 1112 Adams, but his dream failed to materialize. Around 1890 D. L. Brace and George Bigelow remapped the area as Grand View with curvilinear streets, a protective green belt and proposed electric street railway connection at their site, promoted as being above the sight line of the second capitol and having pure air.
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At the same point in time, the Grand View Building Association joined the Episcopal Church in building the Worthington Academy boys' school. The 1892, stone, four-story, $60,000 Trinity Hall stood at the highest point in the tract as “a monument that [would] last forever.” Sadly, the never-successful academy exploded and burned in 1898, leaving only extant scattered stone.
William H. Slattery was born in Galesburg, Illinois. After graduating from the College of Surgeons Medical School in St. Louis, he moved to Lincoln with his medical degree and $12. Three years later he was appointed city physician, then sssistant duperintendent of the State Department of Health and later served on the board of St. Elizabeth Hospital.
At about the same time he bought 640 acres of land in what had originally been Grand View, then replatted as Marsden Heights in 1890. In 1927 Slattery built the half-timbered and brick house, designed by Ferdinand Fiske and Harry Meginnis as photographed above, on North 14th Street, at which time the city limits ended to the south at Superior Street.
Dr. Slattery died at 70 in November of 1942 after practicing medicine in Lincoln for over 40 years. In 1940 the house was listed as being occupied by Willliam and Patricia Slattery, a student and apparently his daughter, then, no mention is made of the house until 1948, other than the plat of the subdivision was vacated.
Sometime in 1948 the house and several acres of adjoining land were acquired by Jim and Arlone Miller, who began converting the mansion into a restaurant. In June of 1949 the Millers opened Arbor Manor as a party house/restaurant at 4600 N. 14th St., still outside Lincoln’s city limits.
Their first advertisements boasted the location featured “scenic beauty to rave about” with steaks, chicken and seafood featured on the menu. During 1949 Arbor Manor ran a series of ads, one noting the restaurant’s “Colorado Resort Atmosphere” catered to bridge clubs and lunches while the evenings featured the Miller Combo.
As summer approached, the veranda was enclosed for dining and dancing with no cover charge and a menu which featured entrees for $1.50 and up. During that fall, each week advertised various singers, dance bands and entertainers and, as they were located outside Lincoln’s liquor law impediments, their Refreshment Lounge was opened. Evidently business did not increase as expected and, in the fall, small judgments and claims became an almost weekly listing in Lincoln newspapers. In November of 1949 the Millers divorced.
After a brief hiatus, Arbor Manor reopened in August of 1950 with a newspaper story pointing out the new velvet-walled dining room. LeRoy Osborn, the then operator of Arbor Manor died soon after. Two years later another article noted that Lt. Col. Bill Pegram, apparently the actual owner of the house and land, had “outgrown his Herford hobby and 210-acre Arbor Manor.” By 1972 Pegram’s wife, 98-year-old Lois Pegram lived in the house with their daughter Donja with a collection of peacocks and other pets.
In 2008 Donja Pegram Siders applied to have the “fairy-tale castle” designated a local landmark where it now sits nestled in a tree-lined island within the one-time 640-acre farm.
Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen, invites comments or questions. Write to him at P.O. Box 5575, Lincoln, NE, 68505 or at jim@leebooksellers.com.
