No. I’m not talking about our amazing local Mediterranean restaurant where robotic serving drones might deliver your order when it’s ready. Believe it or not, this name was originally given to a well known building here in Los Alamos. The structure has gone through a number of renovations and name changes until it does not at ALL resemble it’s original self.

In the photo above, it’s not difficult to decide which structure was referred to as “The Pyramid”! I think the most interesting aspect of this photo taken around 1922 from the northwest side of the LARS grounds, is the sheer distance between the Pyramid and the Big House! Most of our historic buildings seem clumped together to our modern minds. We just forget that they’re only close together now because they sprawled that way!

Pyramid for the Masters

The Pyramid was built sometime before 1920. Most of the early ranch and ranch school buildings have origin dates that have been estimated over the years by our local Historical Society through the process of comparing photographs and existing surveys.

The first few years of the school’s existence were lean in both the student and schoolmaster populations. Masters lived in the Big House with the boys and AJ Connell. As the number of pupils grew, the need for more space caused Connell to request the addition of a Master’s Cottage. The square shape of the building along with it’s steeply pitched roof earned it the name, “The Pyramid”.

Two masters occupied the space, each with a separate apartment. By apartment we’re talking a desk, a dresser, and a brass bed. Although it seems a waste that there were beds in each space because the house also had a little sleeping porch. (Because AJ Connell must’ve been obsessed with porch sleeping, something most of us probably get if we have no a/c in high summer up here!) However, later residents of the Pyramid apartments were probably truly glad of the private sleeping space.

Newlyweds in the Pyramid

We’ve already explored the original residents of Master Cottage #3, Fermor and Peggy Pond Church. While their cottage on the mesa was built, they moved into the Pyramid. At that time, the school’s secretary moved into the other half of the Pyramid. Fermor and Peggy would occupy the Pyramid until their home was finished in 1925. With no kitchen inside the Pyramid, Peggy and Fermor took their meals at the Big House with the rest of the students and staff. Talk about a nice start to married life! No cooking!

From Pyramid to Spruce Cottage

By 1927, the school had a good number of students and masters, plus other staff which required a bit more in the way of living space. The Pyramid had been housing unmarried teachers for several years, but now Connell decided to give the senior boys troop, Spruce Patrol, a bit more privacy and distinction. There was no way Spruce Patrol was going to fit in the current Pyramid configuration. So, the Pyramid roof was abandoned, the building got longer, and it got a two sided pitched roof and a larger sleeping porch.

Spruce Patrol’s new digs included a good sized common room and a larger sleeping porch so everyone had space. Connell wasn’t so secure in Spruce Patrol’s good behavior that he let them be over there without a RA, so to speak. One of the former master apartments remained on one side of the structure. A master occupied this space which alleviated the crunch in the Big House and kept Spruce Patrol under some kind of supervision. By 1928, some of the unmarried masters were also living in the former Director’s Cottage, (Master Cottage #1).

Couples Galore

By 1935, Master Cecil Wirth got hitched and Connell decided he wasn’t content to have Wirth move away from his digs at Spruce Cottage. Instead of moving the married couple out, Connell hired John Gaw Meem to design an addition on the West side of Spruce Cottage. Therefore, the building got even more sprawled out!

The Wirths eventually moved into bigger space (they would eventually live in Master Cottage #3 for a few years after the Churchs moved out), and Master Harry Walen and his new bride, Betty, moved in. Poor Betty Walen reminds me of an awful lot of folks who move here to Los Alamos even today. The young bride had never been West of Washington D.C. before marrying Harry and following him to a job in the middle of nowhere on a plateau at the end of the world in New Mexico! Sound familiar? Of course, Betty Walen also had a pack of high school senior boys sharing her roof!

Betty was a lovely woman and a good sport. During her time in the stone addition at Spruce Cottage, Fuller Lodge had become the center of ranch school life. She and her husband took their midday and evening meals in the Lodge, but she cooked breakfast on a little wood cookstove in her apartment. Apparently she became an early riser fairly quickly due to the Spruce Patrol habit of coming to bother Master Walen at an ungodly hour in the morning.

When Harry and Betty were expecting their first child, musical cottages happened again and Peggy and Fermor Church moved back into Spruce Cottage so the Wirths could move their expanding family into Master Cottage #3. Peggy and Fermor would live at Spruce Cottage in the stone addition until the Manhattan Project took over and the school closed down for good.

I always find it fascinating to think about how many lives the ranch school buildings have had here in Los Alamos. Connell intentionally built most of the structures so they could be easily remodeled and repurposed. Cottages were frame structures sided with logs on both the inside and the outside. This allowed the building to be added onto with minimal fuss and honestly kept these buildings in use from then until now.

Next week, I’ll dig a bit more into the Pyramid’s days as a WAC Shack and also when it suddenly sprawled so large that it occupied three addresses on three different streets! Until then, enjoy this beautiful fall weather, the colors on the trees, and go take a visit to the Historical Museum, which is still open even during the parking lot project.

And when you’re trying to buy or sell a home in Los Alamos, give me a call! I love Los Alamos housing both historic and modern and I would love to chat with you about your real estate needs!