During all the years I have wandered Reno, I never thought much about the unassuming brown and yellow house at 347 West Street in downtown Reno. I recall thinking it had some interesting architectural features, such as the little Victorian touches on the top of the porch columns, but otherwise it just seemed like an old house with bay windows.
In recent years, the area around the house, which, at least since the 1940s, has been populated largely by small hotels, began to change. A developer, working with the city of Reno, announced plans to create the “Reno Neon Line” district, along West Fourth Street, which will be some combination of resorts, restaurants, nightclubs, residential uses, and other businesses (the exact plans are still being developed).
The developer began acquiring property in the area for its $1 billion arts, entertainment and residential development and, to date, more than a dozen of the small motels have been demolished, leaving the little brown and yellow house to stand, looking somewhat forlorn, amidst empty lots filled with debris.
Earlier this year, however, Reno historian Alicia Barber discovered the home, known as the Benham-Belz House, which is not owned by the developer, was most likely built in 1868, making it the oldest house still standing on the original Reno townsite, which was established that same year.
Barber told the Reno Gazette-Journal in April 2022 that “when this was built, Reno was a little rail town, the Comstock lode was still booming, and it was a place to get to somewhere else, but the people that stayed here had this faith that it would be something else.”
According to Barber’s research, the first owners of the house were Issac and Melinda Benham. Issac was a stonemason from New York, who likely built the seven-room dwelling, which originally had a barn and small fruit tree orchard. He would later build the brick Belmont Courthouse in Nye County and the Central School in Reno in 1879.
The house was sold to John and Lizzie Belz in the early 1880s. John, who was originally from Germany, was a popular local barber. Following his sudden death in 1900, his wife remained in the house, raising their four children.
Lizzie Belz continued to live in the house until her death in 1953 at the age of 93. After that, one of her daughters, Florence, who was a nurse, resided in the house until she died in 1981 at the age of 87.
In the 1980s, the house was purchased by the Gorham family, which continues to own it. In the 2022 Reno Gazette-Journal story, current owner John Gorham, who is a realtor, said his grandparents lived in the house for many years and it is his intention to fix it up, perhaps making it into a deli, a 1920s-style speakeasy, or a soda fountain.
Gorham told the newspaper that the developer who has purchased all the surrounding property attempted to buy the house from him but they couldn’t agree on a price.
So, for the time being, the little brown and yellow house is in limbo. If you stand in front of the home, you can see the towering Sands Hotel behind it. All around is what the RGJ described as “an empty motel graveyard.”
Will it end up like the Reno Mercantile building, once the oldest building in the city, built in 1872, which was demolished in 2018? Or will it survive like the Lake Mansion, built in 1877, but relocated several times before landing in 2004 at 250 Court Street to serve as the home of Arts for All Nevada?
For more information about the Benham-Belz House, go to: https://renohistorical.org/items/show/230.
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