Harvesting Historical Riches

Paradise in Ten Years: C. L. Hover and Hoverhome

On advice from his doctor, Charles L. Hover traded a profitable Denver business for a quiet farm west of Longmont.  A recent explosion and cave-in at his wholesale drug company-which he managed with his brother-ignited his decision to leave the city and pursue a calmer life in the country.  Yet, as his subsequent record as a farmer, businessman, and civic leader proves, Hover never quite succeeded at following his doctor's orders.

In 1912 a Denver newspaper ran an article describing Hover's remarkable adaptation to his new profession headlined, "Prairie Farm is Paradise in Ten Years." In 1902 Hover had purchased the 160-acre Williamson farm two miles northwest of Longmont.  With hard work augmented by scientific principles obtained as a pharmacy school graduate and drug store owner, Hover gradually improved his then unproductive alkali-ridden tract into a model farmstead.  He installed a drainage system to remove alkali deposits, planted alfalfa to replenish the soil's nitrogen, and grazed livestock to produce natural fertilizer.  The plan worked; a decade later his alkali waste had become what the same newspaper article described as "a modern farm of great value."

During their first decade in Longmont, Hover and his wife Katherine lived in the original Williamson house before constructing a new cottage.  The cottage, lacking electricity or running water, served as a temporary home until the Hovers could build a more substantial dwelling.  That structure, acquired by the St. Vrain Historical Society with assistance from the State Historical Fund in 1997, is now a prominent National Register landmark that reminds today's visitors of Hover's life and Longmont's agricultural heritage.

Prescient editors at the Longmont Ledger identified the Hover's house as a symbol of the area's growing prosperity even before craftsmen finished its six thousand square-foot interior.  The paper's June 15, 1914 edition featured a page-one photograph of the nearly completed Tudor Revival home with a caption that gives the impression that it belonged not just to Charles, Katherine, and their adopted daughter Beatrice, but to the whole town. "Mr. and Mrs. Hover are to be congratulated on having such a beautiful home," the caption reads, "and the district around Longmont [is to be] congratulated that such a farm residence can be so located."

Their pride was justified.  Designed by the nationally-lauded architectural firm of Roeschlaub and Roeschlaub, the house exhibits Jacobethan gables surmounting steep-pitched rooflines, red brick exterior walls graced with terra cotta detailing around windows, doors, and chimneys, and Tudor arches cresting the entry porch and front door.  All of the first-floor rooms open to the outside, reflecting an Arts and Crafts penchant for blending interior and exterior space.

Although Hover may have pleased his doctor by turning over daily operation of his farm to a tenant in 1912, he maintained an active interest in scientific farm management, business, and civic affairs throughout his life.  During World War I, he served as treasurer for his district's Red Cross chapter and as the state's agricultural advisor for the draft.  In 1920 fellow businessmen elected him president of the local commercial association.  He also served as vice president of Empson Packing Company, vice president of the Boulder County Fair Association, and served on the Farm Bureau's board of directors.  After a lifetime of service, Charles Hover died in 1958.

The St. Vrain Historical Society preserved Hover's legacy of agricultural innovation and community service by purchasing the original farmhouse in 1994, related outbuildings in 1996, and his house-known as Hoverhome-in 1997.  Hover Community Inc., which provides residential housing for seniors, had cared for Hoverhome since Beatrice Hover moved out in 1982.  Unable to maintain the structure as a showplace but hoping it could be preserved as a public museum, they sold it to the St. Vrain Historical Society for the below-market price of $500,000.  The Society's fund-raising efforts matched Hover's near-miraculous resurrection of the farm.  Hover himself would have been proud of their business plan.  The group managed to raise $377,400 between 1997 and 2001 while obtaining the remainder from the State Historical Fund.

Members of the St. Vrain Historical Society know that completing a multi-year, half-million dollar project requires immense determination and commitment.  Hover, who seemingly ignored his doctor's orders to take it easy in the country, understood that concept too.  In a speech addressed to the Sons of the American Revolution during World War I, he said that people "must be urged, and urged, and urged again before they awake to the realization that they have a duty to perform… We all realize that the appeal must be strong indeed… before we make our just contributions, our earnest sacrifices, and lend our unstinted support to a good cause." Hoverhome and the surrounding farmstead, emblematic of farmland that is quickly disappearing in Boulder County, is such a cause.

BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor, Colorado History NOW