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Fountain Valley School

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1930. 10 miles southeast of Colorado Springs

In 1930 faculty from the Old Farms School relocated from Connecticut to a 1,600-acre ranch near the town of Fountain, now a suburb of Colorado Springs. The school took the name of its new location and moved into the John R. Bradley Hacienda (1927, Addison Mizner), a stuccoed Spanish Colonial Revival home wrapped around its courtyard. Mizner, the society architect who defined the style of Palm Beach, Florida, and planned the community of Boca Raton, designed this home for a Palm Beach friend. “Casa Serena” was set in a valley and designed with a Moorish tower, originally built for water storage. Los Manos tiles manufactured by Mizner Industries in Florida were used inside and out.

Elsewhere on the campus, the stuccoed Pueblo Revival style and massing of John Gaw Meem appear in his Elizabeth Sage Hall (1930), which is reminiscent of his plaza buildings in Santa Fe. Meem's other work for the campus includes Penrose Hall, a soft-edged, two-story structure with an entry zaguan and stepped-back upper-story massing. The Spanish Colonial theme is continued in the Carlton Chapel (1960s, Carlisle B. Guy and Associates), with its stepped parapet rising to a bell tower. Open-beam ceilings predominate in the interiors of these buildings, as does a feeling of casual elegance. Guy, who studied with Meem, designed five buildings for the campus. The Frantantschi Campus Center (1990, Johnson, Nestor, Mortier, Rodriguez) is a bright, exquisitely detailed contemporary version of Pueblo Revival Style. The Visual Arts Center (1991, Michael Collins) is housed in a 1928 remodeling of a stock barn.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel

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