RAWLINS — On any given day, you’ll find Kay-Marie Wilder rummaging through one drawer or another, “MacGyvering” up a fix for her historic Ferris Mansion.

Wilder comes by her MacGyver genes honestly. She was a teenager when her parents Janice and David Lubbers bought the Rawlins and Wyoming landmark Ferris Mansion in 1979, and she got to use all of her do-it-yourself fix-it genes as they worked to save the historic home from ruin.

The Lubbers have readily admitted they had no real idea the true magnitude of the task they were taking on when they bought the aging mansion at 607 W. Maple St. 

They thought the renovation work would take a couple of years, tops. Instead, it took 25 years of steady work to fully return the house to its former 1903 hardwood-and-lace glory.

“The gentleman who owned it before us was kind of an absentee landlord,” Wilder told Cowboy State Daily. “So, things were not taken care of. You could have as many pets as you wanted, it was just horrific. There was like a mattress in the Rose Room, and I don’t know what happened there. Stuff was just stuck to the walls and there was fecal matter from dogs, too.”

There was also a great deal of medical equipment strewn about. A doctor had inhabited one of the spaces at one time, so there was truly no telling what one might find lying about. 

Wilder recalls her parents tearing out all the carpet first thing and using a scoop shovel to toss truckloads of debris and rubbish out of the mansion to make it a habitable living space.

The mansion had been subdivided into apartments sometime in the 1940s, so it had lots of walls that needed to be torn out and kitchens in the strangest of places. It didn’t take long for Janice to realize the couple needed help if they were going to finish the renovation within their lifetimes. 

So she called her sister, Phyllis Lenz, and talked her into coming and helping with all the work.

“She says, ‘Well, I’ll move out for a couple of years,’” Wilder said, smiling at the memory. “She was here for 36 years. Those ladies worked great together and my dad, MacGyver, could do anything — electrician, plumber, mechanic. So he wasn’t the type to be daunted by the task of buying this place and fixing it up.”

• The Ferris Mansion in Rawlins has been restored, a 25-year effort of a family that had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they bought it in 1979. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Lavender Room in the Ferris Mansion is not available for an Airbnb stay. Some say they’ve seen a young child looking out the curved window when driving by the mansion. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The stenciling work in the dining room of the Ferris Mansion was done by Kaye Marie Wilder’s mother, Janice Lubber. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Rose Room features a large bed with a wall hanging celebrating Carbon County. The Ferris Mansion is one of the buildings portrayed on the wall hanging. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The landing on the second floor of the Ferris Mansion includes a cool display of period hats that once belonged to the owner’s grandmother. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The kitchen is small but quite efficient. Coffee service for guests is served here. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Ferris Mansion is heated with a series of radiators that are still in good working order. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The dining room in the Ferris Mansion in Rawlins. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The headboard on the bed in the Gold Room of the Ferris Mansion. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)

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No Relation To The Ferris Wheel

The Ferris Mansion in Rawlins is both a sad and an inspiring tale all wrapped into one.

George Ferris had for his whole life pursued great wealth. On the very day he achieved it by selling the Ferris-Hagerty mine for $1 million, he was killed while riding in a runaway stagecoach. The accident happenedon the aptly named Snow Slide Hill on his way home from the mine in Encampment. 

Newspaper accounts of the time say that his stagecoach was passing an area where a team of horses had been killed by an avalanche the prior year and the stench of the dead bodies terrified the stagecoach’s team of horses. Ferris was in the stagecoach with a brother, who escaped unharmed. But Ferris was tossed and hit a brake block and brake beam on the wagon as it was overturning. 

“There is something singularly pathetic in the death of Mr. Ferris, and it furnishes a theme for the moralists who like to discourse on the vanity of life and the rewards that often come from a life of toil too late to be enjoyed,” a newspaper obituary at the time read. “Having spent all his years seeking wealth, Mr. Ferris finally attained it in a way that has made his name famous all over the land, only to have the reward snatched from his hands on the very day of his triumph.”

If his death had been pathetic, what came next could certainly be considered inspiring. 

His wife Julia announced that she would complete construction of the Ferris Mansion, a Barber and Klutz home likely sourced from the book “Modern Dwellings,” which was published in 1888.

Barber was serving a nouveau riche clientele who had made fortunes out West and wanted homes that made a statement, not only about their success, but about the success of the West. 

The cost for Julia to complete the spacious 21-room, three-story home with 65 windows and five fireplaces was in the neighborhood of $60,000 in 1900 dollars, plus an additional $25,000 for the furnishings, which she sourced from San Francisco. A glass chandelier in the home itself cost $1,000.

Colorado-pressed brick custom-designed for the home was used to form the home’s 18-inch-thick walls, which had an air space in the middle. Local sandstone was used to trim between the bricks, as well as the granite base of the home.

The roof tiles were interlocking ceramic Ludiwici tiles with a lifespan of 100 to 300 years. 

8,000 Square Feet Of Catastrophe

Restoring the home to that level of grandeur was a daunting task. Picture 8,000 square feet of mansion turned into a maze of apartments lined with tired, moldy carpets and debris, peeling paint, rotting windowsills and the occasional gaping hole for good measure.

Once the overall mess has been carted out, though, the task had only just begun.

There were hundreds of hours of work in just sanding and polishing all the beautiful woodwork in the home, most of which had been hidden behind layers of ugly and peeling paint. 

All that effort proved worthwhile, though. Behind the peeling paint, the Lubbers discovered 8-foot-tall pocket doors that were made of one of the rarest woods in the world, birdseye maple. It’s a distinctive pattern found in just 1% of all maple wood. 

A fair amount of sleuthing also was required to restore the home.

Janice subscribed to magazines and did research in the library to figure out what should be there that wasn’t. She also tracked down the location of the mansion’s original grand staircase in Encampment and bought it back. Its original newel was still intact, though the spindles were not. So, she bought replacements — 150 of them.

Old Paint For New

The couple also took off the bright red paint on the home and replaced it with a rose hue, more in keeping with what had been there when the Queen Anne-style Barber home was built.

There were lots of “MacGyver” situations in the process of doing all that work, and Wilder is proud to show a few of them off.

In the dining area, for example, some friends were dancing on the hardwood floor and their heels caused a few scuff marks and indentions. Not to worry. Janice stenciled over all of that quite nicely. It’s not noticeable at all now. 

Then there was the light fixture at the base of the stairs, original to the home, that was missing one white pane. There was no affordable way to source a single white pane of glass like that from the turn of the century. So Janice took a knife to a white plastic milk jug, carefully cutting out a replacement piece that is all but indistinguishable from the others, unless pointed out.

Similarly, when the family was given a quote of $15,000 to create curved storm windows, the Lubbers figured out how to fashion their own from heavy sheet plastic for $200.

The restoration process was not all smooth sailing, of course. One winter, a below-average cold freeze caused one of the mansion’s pipes to burst. Hundreds of gallons of water flooded out all over the beautiful work they’d done in that area, peeling plaster from the walls and leaving a disaster in its wake.

“Water just poured down and the ceiling caved in,” Wilder said. “It was just awful.” 

No problem. Janice and Lenz had recently salvaged some tin ceiling tiles from a downtown bar in Rawlins. They had already been working on restoring them to put somewhere. They would be perfect in the kitchen.

Once the damage had been repaired and the ceiling tiles were all in place, everything seemed to fit right in as if it had always been that way.

As a result of the flood, a secret butler’s door also was discovered. That made for much better traffic patterns through the home, which the couple turned into a bed and breakfast for several years and helped pay for the continued work on the beautiful old home.

Ghosts Galore

Tell anyone in Rawlins that you’re staying at the Ferris mansion and likely you’ll see eyes get round as quarters.

“Which room are you staying in?” is the inevitable question. “Is it … the round room? Driving past the house at night, I think I’ve seen a small child in the window of the round room.”

That small child is supposed to be Cecil Ferris, killed in a shooting accident by one of his brothers who was playing with a gun that an older brother had brought home and put down on a bedroom table.

Cecil happened to be passing through the door of the bedroom as his brothers were playing with the gun. The shot hit him in the neck, severing an artery and killing him instantly. 

But the ghost that Janice reported seeing in a newspaper article was that of Julia herself.

The experience, Wilder said, was a disquieting one at the time. But since the home’s restoration, all the “energy” has transformed in the house. 

Some guests have reported seeing a woman in white standing over their bed, but this reporter experienced no hauntings while in the mansion.

While the bed and breakfast Wilder’s parents started is no longer operating, Wilder has continued to offer a fabulous stay at the Ferris Mansion through Airbnb. She has three rooms for short-term stays, the Blue Room, The Rose Room and the Gold Room. Each has its own private bath, and a couple of the rooms also feature beautiful fireplaces. 

Wilder plans to sell the now regal historic Ferris Mansion as she has young grandchildren in Utah. It is for sale by owner for $750,000. It sits in a secluded neighborhood of Rawlins, where deer commonly visit to nibble on the grass.

The mansion is a grand old lady and an iconic piece of Wyoming’s history.

Renée Jean can be reached at Renee@CowboyStateDaily.com.

The post From Destroy To Regal, A Wyoming Household’s Mission To Save The Ferris Mansion appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Travelers line up to check in for United Airlines flights at San Francisco International Airport on July 1, 2022 in San Francisco, Calif. This summer is expected to be a record for air travel.

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Travelers line up to check in for United Airlines flights at San Francisco International Airport on July 1, 2022 in San Francisco, Calif. This summer is expected to be a record for air travel.

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Memorial Day weekend is upon us, kicking off the busy summer vacation season, and airlines are forecasting that this could be their busiest summer ever. Industry projections indicate that despite relatively high airfares, U.S. airlines could carry a record number of passengers this summer, even though they’re still operating fewer flights than before the pandemic.

The coming months are likely to be a “stress test” for a national aviation system plagued by recent staffing shortages, antiquated technology, air traffic control problems, scheduling issues and labor disputes.

After widespread flight delays and cancellations last year, consumer advocates and some within the travel industry worry air travelers could face similar disruptions that will mess up their summer travel plans again.

If you’re among those hoping to jet off to somewhere fun this summer, here’s what you can expect.

Long lines and packed planes starting this weekend

Travelers line up to get into the security checkpoint at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last summer.

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Travelers line up to get into the security checkpoint at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last summer.

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“This summer’s travel demand will be as strong as we’ve seen since before the pandemic and potentially the strongest ever,” says Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, which represents airlines, hotels and other travel-related businesses.

The crush of travelers starts Memorial Day weekend, with AAA forecasting that about 3.4 million Americans will be flying this Thursday through Monday.

Including the numbers of commercial airline flights and those on smaller general aviation aircraft, there will be more than 313,000 flights over the seven-day holiday period from May 24 to May 30, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. While that is just below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, the airlines may actually be flying more people by using bigger planes than they normally would on many routes.

The FAA projects that this Thursday will be the busiest day of the Memorial Day weekend, with more than 51,000 flights forecast.

Among the commercial airlines, United is predicting this Memorial Day weekend will be its busiest in more than a decade. Delta expects a whopping 17% increase in passengers from last year.

“The airports are packed,” says Steve Solomon, chief commercial officer of the Airlines Reporting Corp., which processes and tracks airline ticket sales. “So travelers should prepare to get to the airport early, allow adequate time to get through security screening, through the TSA, and expect to see a lot of people on really full planes.”

Solomon says Europe is especially popular this summer, with huge increases in the number of airline tickets purchased for the top ten destinations across the Atlantic, even though prices are up significantly.

“Summer 2022 was pretty rocky”

People travel through the terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport at the start of the Memorial Day weekend on May 27, 2022 in New York City. This coming Memorial Day is the start of a busy summer air travel season.

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People travel through the terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport at the start of the Memorial Day weekend on May 27, 2022 in New York City. This coming Memorial Day is the start of a busy summer air travel season.

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If last summer is any indication, air travelers might be in for some turbulence before they get off the ground this summer.

“Things were very bad for air travelers last year. They were as bad as they’ve been in 25 years or more,” says Andre Delattre, national program director for PIRG, the Public Interest Research Group. The consumer advocacy group analyzed airline passenger complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“There were five times more complaints in 2022 compared to 2019 before the pandemic, even though fewer people were flying,” he says.

Airlines delayed and canceled a staggering number of flights last year — more than 210,000 were canceled, according to the flight tracking firm FlightAware. “Other than the early months of the pandemic, that’s more canceled flights than any year since 2001, when, of course, 9/11 disrupted air travel,” Delattre says.

A recent Government Accountability Office investigation found that the sharp increase in airline flight disruptions in recent years was largely caused by factors within the airlines’ control, including maintenance issues, technology glitches and staffing problems.

Even though taxpayers shelled out $50 billion to keep airlines in business and pilots, flight attendants and other employees on the payrolls during the pandemic, airlines offered early retirements and other incentives for workers, including experienced flight crews and ground crews, to leave.

Then air travel demand returned much more quickly than airlines expected. Many tried to cash in with aggressive scheduling, but the staff was stretched too thin to meet that demand, especially during severe weather, which led flight crews to time out without fresh crew members to replace them. With planes and flight crews out of place and too few replacements available, it would take some airlines a week or more to get caught up from one series of thunderstorms.

Add to that a new pilot training backlog, and shortages of mechanics, maintenance workers, gate agents and customer service staff, along with technology glitches and outdated scheduling software at some airlines, and it all cascaded into several periods over the last year in which hundreds of thousands of would be travelers were stranded, the worst of which was over the Christmas holiday, when Southwest alone had to cancel 17,000 flights.

Airlines say they’re better prepared now

Travelers line up to check in for United Airlines flights at Newark Liberty International Airport on July 1, 2022 in Newark, N.J. Experts are predicting heavy travel this summer.

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Travelers line up to check in for United Airlines flights at Newark Liberty International Airport on July 1, 2022 in Newark, N.J. Experts are predicting heavy travel this summer.

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American and its rival airlines all say they’re much better prepared for this summer than last. They’ve all gone on a hiring spree, with passenger airlines adding nearly 4,500 employees just in March alone.

The industry now employs more than 486,000 workers in the U.S., nearly 10% more than they had before the pandemic.

Most airlines handled the recent surge in spring break travelers relatively well, and the cancellation rate so far this year is down significantly from last year. According to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, airlines canceled 1.7% of flights over the first three months of this year, far lower than the 2.7% flight cancellation rate for all of last year, and 4.1% for the first quarter of 2022.

“We are as prepared as we can possibly be,” says Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the lobbying group representing the nation’s biggest air carriers. “We’ve got a lot more employees. We have reduced our schedules and adjusted how we’re flying,” in an effort to minimize flight disruptions.

But many industry experts warn travelers to be prepared for significant flight delays and cancellations anyway, caused by things outside of the airlines’ control.

The FAA’s air traffic control issues

An American Airlines Airbus A319 airplane takes off past the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., in January.

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An American Airlines Airbus A319 airplane takes off past the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., in January.

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While the Biden administration is turning up the heat on the airlines to fulfill their obligations to passengers, the airlines are growing frustrated with the federal government’s own aviation shortcomings.

The FAA warns that a significant shortage of air traffic controllers overseeing the very congested New York area airspace could increase flight delays into and out of Newark, LaGuardia and JFK airports by 45% this summer.

In addition, the chronically underfunded FAA is also struggling to replace outdated technology. The failure of a pilot notification system in January led the FAA to briefly halt all flight departures nationwide, causing thousands of flight delays and cancellations that day.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection staffing shortages in many airports has led to hourslong waits for international travelers returning to the U.S. to get through customs.

Geoff Freeman of U.S. Travel puts the blame for many of these problems not on the airlines, but on Congress and the federal government.

“These problems have come out of years and years of underinvestment,” Freeman says. “If the government doesn’t act now, the headaches won’t just happen during peak travel season and holidays, it will become our daily reality.”

Summer air travel tips

A man pushes his bags at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on May 27, 2021 in Los Angeles as people travel for Memorial Day weekend. The Department of Transportation has a website to assist travelers with knowing their rights.

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A man pushes his bags at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on May 27, 2021 in Los Angeles as people travel for Memorial Day weekend. The Department of Transportation has a website to assist travelers with knowing their rights.

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Airline passengers who run into problems from flight disruptions to lost luggage this summer can find out more about their rights and the airlines’ responsibilities at the Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection. The site also links to a dashboard listing which airlines are willing to pay for meals, ground transportation, hotels and other expenses incurred because of significant delays and cancellations that are the airline’s fault. It also link to a site where consumers can file complaints.

Experts recommend booking flights earlier in the day as storms tend to develop later in the afternoon and evening. It’s also a good idea to check the weather forecast for your destination and any cities where you have a layover. The FAA has a site showing where severe weather may cause problems for air travelers each day.

Use the airline’s app to track not just whether your flight is on time, but where the plane is coming from and if there are delays there. Book nonstop flights, if possible, so you don’t get stranded on a layover.

Travelers who are checking luggage should also be sure to pack an extra change of clothes or two and medications and other necessities in their carry-on bag, in case there’s a significant delay or cancellation after you’ve checked in.

The bottom line for those of us flying this summer is to plan ahead, prepare for the worst — and hope for the best.

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