Nevada’s premier architect, Frederic DeLongchamps conceived the Giraud House in 1914. The design utilizes formal Colonial Revival style elements such as a wide frieze below the roofline, comprehensive use of white Tuscan columns and red brick construction. The main decorative features are the porches projecting from three sides, each framed with columns. Brick has long been a popular building material in Reno, as well as a favorite of DeLongchamps, and it is employed in the full range of architectural styles found in town. The house is located in the Newlands neighborhood, an early example of the numerous mansions and homes built in the most fashionable district in Reno, primarily between the 1920s and the 1940s.
The house was built for Joseph Giraud, a sheep rancher. For a number of years, the sheep industry was lucrative, and more than a few sheep ranchers made fortunes on wool and meat, which was needed for the mining boomtowns that sprang up all over Nevada. In 1934, the house was purchased by Roy Allen Hardy, a mining engineer who worked for George Wingfield, a prominent Nevada politician and banker. As a confederate of Wingfield, Hardy would have been a prominent citizen in Reno, and served as mine foreman, superviser, owner and operator of a number of mining operation in surrounding cities. He also served as a regent of the University of Nevada for eight years. Much of the interior remains intact and in the upstairs men’s bathroom there is a tiled mural of a nude. The model for the mural reportedly posed for many a Reno artist.
The building currently houses the Hardy House. Call 775-322-4555 for restaurant information.
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Courtesy S. Ward – Mount Charleston, near Las Vegas