Many of us know the name Peggy Pond Church. Margaret “Peggy” Pond was the daughter of Ashley Pond. She grew up on the Pajarito Plateau from the time of her father’s Pajarito Club venture. By the time she married a Los Alamos Ranch School Master, Fermor Church, she was already on her way to becoming a well known poet and author. Given Peggy’s long time love affair with the region and Fermor Church’s important role at the school, it’s no wonder they immediately settled down to life at the ranch school.
The “First Family” at LARS
The couple was married in 1924 and spent their honeymoon at Camp May. You can read more about that HERE. It’s probably no surprise that the couple was expecting a baby fairly quickly. They’d been happy at the school, but the need for a family home quickly rose to the top of the couple’s list of wants. With help from Peggy’s parents, they decided to build their own home.
There was no doubt that AJ Connell wanted to keep Fermor Church as a Master at the ranch school. With this in mind, Connell allowed Peggy and Fermor to build a small cottage at the far north boundary of the school, “inside the fence”, but far enough away to give the impression of privacy.
While the cottage destined to become “Master Cottage #3” did not originally belong to the ranch school, it sat on property which did. Connell requested that Fermor Church do a complete survey of the school grounds in order to clarify the legality of the situation. The photo below, (courtesy of the Los Alamos historical Museum Archives), is the first formal map of the Ranch School.
In early 1925 construction began on the cottage that Fermor Church designed for what was to be a decent sized family. By fall of that same year, Peggy and Fermor moved into Master Cottage #3 with their brand new baby son, Theodore “Ted” Church. Peggy loved life on the plateau. She once wrote that there was “only a stand of young pine trees between us and Pueblo Canyon…made it seem almost as though we had the world of mountain and mesa to ourselves”.
A Change in Protocol
Master Cottage #3 boasted a living room complete with a beautiful stone fireplace, two bedrooms, and a modest kitchen. The Church’s home had one more bedroom than the average ranch school dwelling, but that’s not what actually set it apart.
Master Cottage #3 was the only Master Cottage that had its own dining room. Connell wanted all masters to take meals with the boys. That had included married masters and their wives until Peggy and Fermor added Ted to their family. The need for a private family dining room in the Church’s Cottage made sense, no matter how strange it might have seemed at the time.
In 1928, Fermor and Peggy added a second story to their cottage when their second son, Allen, arrived. By 1932 the cottage still felt as though it needed more space so the Churches hired John Gaw Meem to add a stone living room to the northeast corner of the cottage. With another fireplace, a vaulted ceiling, and Meem’s typical exposed beams, the attractive space was completed just in time for the arrival of Hugh Church. Peggy and Fermor named John Gaw Meem his godfather. A fitting tribute to the talented architect.
Eventually the boys grew into active, rambunctious boys which made their mother’s writing quite difficult to accomplish in such a busy household. Fermor snagged some lumber left from a LARS building project and constructed a small writing cabin for his wife on the edge of Pueblo Canyon. The rough cabin had room enough for a wood stove and she spent many happy hours finding inspiration through the window of her “office” just a short 15 minute walk from her busy cottage.
By 1940, two of three Church boys were students at the ranch school and the once busy cottage was quiet. Peggy and Fermor moved out of Master Cottage #3 and back into a master’s apartment at the school. The savvy couple traded the cottage (which they still owned) to the school in order to cover their boys’ tuition. Cecil Wirth and his expanding family moved in for a few years before business manager, Fred Rousseau’s family occupied Master Cottage #3 until the Manhattan Project came to town.
Square Dances & Saturday Night Parties
Master Cottage #3 became T-110 during the wartime. Navy Captain William “Deak” Parsons, his wife Martha, and their two daughters moved into the cottage and remained the only residents until the postwar years. Deak and Martha loved hosting square dances in the Churches spacious living room. Eventually the cottage became the place for large Saturday night get togethers. It’s said that Kitty Oppenheimer didn’t enjoy hosting large parties in her home so Martha Parsons was only too happy to sponsor the weekly social event.
When the Atomic Energy Commission took over in 1947, post commander Lt Col Herbert Gee occupied Master Cottage #3. That didn’t last long however, and in 1948 Duncan and Hilda MacDougall moved into Master Cottage #3. MacDougall had worked as a liaison between his home Laboratory in Bruceton, Pennsylvania and Los Alamos during the war. This position required him to make frequent visits to Los Alamos and he chose to settle here with his family during the postwar years.
MacDougall served as the Associate Director for Weapons, and eventually became responsible for the Central Computing Facility and laser research. The MacDougalls remained assigned to Master Cottage #3 until the AEC’s dispersal of real estate in 1968. The MacDougalls opted to purchase their long time home at that time. Master Cottage #3 continues to be privately owned and enjoyed as a family home to this day. Something I’m sure that Peggy and Fermor Church would approve of!
Nothing represents the ebb and flow of Los Alamos more than the incredible history of our Master Cottages. Fermor Church was an educated man. In fact, he came from Washington, Connecticut and was recruited to the Los Alamos Ranch School after graduating from Harvard University. He fell in love with the Western spirit, with being a cowboy, and with a girl named Peggy Pond. He built his log cabin on the Pajarito Plateau just as the rest of the original buildings here in Los Alamos were built for a similar purpose. But as we’ve seen, these cottages became so much more. Now they are a chunk of real history still sheltering local residents of Los Alamos with a passion for history and the beauty of life in Los Alamos.
There’s no doubt that life in Los Alamos is packed with history and plenty of opportunities for adventure. Thanks again to the Los Alamos Historical Society for their valuable knowledge, the wonderful books, photos, maps, and other archive materials, and for their preservation of our history! And when you and your family are ready to talk real estate buying and selling in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl and I love to talk housing in Los Alamos!
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