The Governor’s House: Welcoming Alaskans for more than 100 years

The first Governor’s House holiday party occurred on Jan. 2, 1913. The New Year’s open house was hosted by Gov. Walter Eli Clark and his family who had moved in the day before to the barely completed residence.

The holiday party tradition has been maintained annually since then with a few breaks for world wars and COVID. The door will again open this year on Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. for people to walk through the elegant yet homey Alaska governor’s residence on Calhoun Avenue. The upper floors are restricted as the first family’s private living quarters.

Entering the house on a cool day in November of 2024, one is met with the gentle scent of an old Alaskan home where sourdough bread and other meals have been cooked for more than 100 years. It adds to the welcoming ambiance that is enlivened by sparkling Christmas lights and holiday decorations as the staff prepares for hundreds of local guests to arrive in December.

In 1910, an act of Congress authorized spending $40,000 to build and furnish the District of Alaska’s “executive mansion.” U.S. Treasury Department supervisory architect John Knox Taylor designed the three-story building. It was constructed during 1912 on a site previously used for a school for Alaska Native children. The youthful population there had outgrown the building and a new school was built to accommodate more students, making the land available for the new residence.

The initial funding did not provide much more than basic construction and furnishings. Gov. Clark desired lavish items in the main floor rooms so some upstairs bedrooms were sparse or empty. He gave a contract to Seattle’s Frederick and Nelson Department Store for all the interior items with only a month to deliver them to the house.

Over the years as governors moved in and out of the house, and funding fluctuated, maintenance was deferred. At various times benign neglect led to problems of leaking pipes, overheated wiring and rotted woodwork. Both exterior and interior deterioration claimed portions of the building that had to be repaired. Major restorations were done in 1936, 1963 and 1967-68, according to documentation prepared in 1976 when the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1983, as newly-elected Gov. Bill Sheffield (1982-1986) prepared to move in, the house needed serious overhaul. He hired Juneau historical designer Phyllice Bradner, who had remodeled chambers in the Alaska State Capitol, to recreate the classic 1913 governor’s house while providing modern conveniences. Her previous work can be seen today in the Senate Finance Committee Room among other Capitol locations.

Gov. Sheffield wanted the house to be upgraded before he moved in, so Bradner was given a very brief time to work with construction personnel to repair damage — such as wet walls from a ruptured inside pipe — to stabilize the house and make it presentable as a proper official residence, she said in a Nov. 11 interview from her home in Oregon.

Other periodic upgrades have been done to the 111-year-old residence. First Lady Sandy Parnell oversaw a remodel of the dining room during her stay at the house during Gov. Sean Parnell’s tenure between 2009 and 2014. A coffered ceiling was added and elegant window treatments were created with handmade flower-shaped ornaments trimming the textile edges. The draperies frame a bay window that lets natural light into the dining room.

When the original house was built in 1912, only $1,000 was designated by Gov. Clark for interior furnishings. That included beds and bedding, tables and chairs, sofas, lamps, china and silverware, pots and pans and kitchen utensils. His selection of items dedicated half of the budget for a $500 Hardman piano. It proved to be an expensive, but long-lived item. It remains today in fine playable condition in the ballroom, which is also known as the music room.

The Governor’s House was the site of then-President Warren G. Harding’s visit to Alaska on a very rainy day in 1923. While his party did not stay overnight in the residence, the president addressed a crowd of citizens from the verandah as the people huddled under their umbrellas that sprouted like mushrooms on the house’s lawn. He called the building “The White House of the North.”

That name became the title of a well-documented book published in 2011 by the daughter of a former governor. Carol Murkowski Sturgulewski wrote a history of the house with stories about the governors and their families during the years they occupied the home. The book features images from many gubernatorial administrations and events.

When President Harding spoke in 1923, the verandah was a smaller porch held up by four pillars. In 1936 the verandah was extended during the first significant upgrade and supported with a total of six pillars as it appears today. During that renovation the front entrance was enlarged to accommodate vehicles dropping off guests sheltered from the weather. The third-floor dormer windows were changed also.

The residence benefitted from another federal program in 1939-1940 when the totem pole outside the house was added as part of the U.S. Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps’ New Deal effort to engage Alaska Native carvers and restore the art of the culture. A plaque near the entrance explains details of Klukwan carver Charlie Tagook’s design.

Today the Governor’s House features many important works of art. Mahogany bookcases in the library display Alaska Native baskets, carvings and historical artifacts visible through the glass doors along with volumes of first-edition books. In the same room a portrait of Secretary of State William Henry Seward is illuminated by sconces above the hearth. Seward was responsible for the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States in 1867 shortly after the American Civil War. A remnant of the Russian period hangs on the wall of the second-floor landing leading to the private quarters: a six-foot-tall portrait of Peter the Great. The painting is thought to have been in Sitka’s Baranof Castle during Russian occupation of that city, according to Carol Sturgulewski’s book “White House of the North.”

The most revered item is the circular Seal of the District of Alaska, installed when the house first opened in 1913. It is affixed to the mantle of the hearth in the ballroom.

Alaska’s first governor after statehood in 1959 was William Egan. His son Dennis was a teenager then and began his radio career on the third floor of the governor’s house. Dennis Egan remained in Juneau after attending what was then Juneau-Douglas High School (renamed in 2019 to add the Tlingit-gifted “Yadaa.at Kalé”). He later served as mayor, state senator and KINY radio’s local voice for years before his death in 2022.

Today the residence is managed by a professional staff. Currently, Maxine Lucero is the executive residence manager. Her first day on the job 15 years ago was the busy holiday open house during the time the Parnells lived upstairs.

“It was chaos,” Lucero said with a smile on Nov. 12. She was hired as a housekeeper, then became the residence chef before becoming the manager. The new housekeeper is Kathleen Michael. Despite being born and raised in Juneau, Michael had not been inside the governor’s house until six months ago when she was hired after many years’ employment in Juneau as a hotel manager and housekeeper.

Manager Lucero arrived well prepared professionally for a busy hospitality venue, having worked at a large Las Vegas casino hotel after a few years crisscrossing the country as chef aboard Amtrak trains where the work “can be dangerous,” she said of the lurching movement of railroad kitchens with hot food.

“We work at the pleasure of the governor,” Lucero said. “So that we want to be sure that everybody who enters the house — especially for the open house where they actually get to walk in, shake hands with the governor, go in and grab as many goodies as they can possibly stand, and go enjoy the Winter Wonderland, and come in here and get some hot cider, and enjoy all the Christmas carols, singers, performers — it’s just a magical night.

“We take great pleasure in getting this ready for everyone,” Lucero added. “Our job is to welcome people into this home.”

“It’s an honor to work here and make it a place where people feel comfortable yet respect the official role. We serve elected officials — go through a lot for one night. We want them to love this house and preserve it,” she continued.

Aside from the annual public open house, the residence hosts private events for the governor. Various legislators and others have been invited to dine at the house which is an easy walk from the State Capitol.

Visiting dignitaries are invited as well, including the famous television star Lassie, the collie dog, in the 1960s. Several governors had their own dogs in the house and yard, too. Before heightened security became necessary to protect political figures, governors often walked their dogs around Juneau. The Parnells, without guards, were occasional strollers with their dog on the popular airport dike trail.

The residence is often called the Governor’s Mansion. Although designated the “executive mansion” when construction was approved in 1910, the official name is the Governor’s House. It appears discreetly on a brass plaque on the front door engraved with “Private Residence.”

Visitors at the Dec. 10 holiday reception should plan for a considerable wait outside in a line often extending around the block since occupancy inside is limited to accommodate a safe number of guests. Those outside will be served warm cider and cookies by state commissioners and volunteers as they inch toward the entrance.

• Contact Laurie Craig at laurie.craig@juneauempire.com.