Terrace Hill: Iowa’s prairie palace

Des Moines was the place to be the third week of January 155 years ago if you were of money in Iowa, Chicago, or New York for the housewarming of the grandest residence ever constructed in the state.

Terrace Hill was, and still is, known, was the Palace of the Prairie built by Benjamin F. Allen and his wife, Arathusa, on a high hilltop above the rolling prairie four miles west of downtown Des Moines. Allen had arrived in the frontier settlement along the banks of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers in 1848 after becoming an orphan, losing his parents to a cholera epidemic when he was 4 years old.

At the age of 19, he joined in partnership with a friend and opened a General Store, and built a sawmill aside the Raccoon River. To supply both operations, they co-founded the Fort Des Moines Steamship Company and transported raw goods by steamboat up the Mississippi and its tributaries to Des Moines and lumber and finished products back down to St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans.

But Allen had foreseen the arrival of the railroad in Des Moines and was a principal investor in the Rock Island Line, making its way west from the Quad Cities.

As the population of the city grew, there was an increasing need for financial services, so Allen started and became an officer for several banks in Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska.

His most enduring, and important position was as co-founder, with Frederick Hubbell, of the Equitable Insurance Company, the first life insurance company in the city.

After the American Civil War, Allen’s assets had ascended to an estimated $4 million dollars, approaching $90 million by today’s standards. Having four children with plans for more, he sought to construct one of the most beautiful and spacious mansions in the American West.

The Second Empire style, sporting elaborate hand carved ornaments with posh filigree and decadent colors, was popular at the time, and Allen hired one of its leading architects, William Boyington, of Chicago, to design his residence.

Boyington, whose most famous landmark was the Gothic water tower that still stands on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, conceived a massive three-story, 20-room edifice with an entry tower that soared almost three stories taller than the home behind it.

The exterior would be red brick with cream hued limestone as trim wrapping around every corner. Inside there was custom furniture hand crafted in New York and fireplace mantels of marble and other exotic stone costing more than $1,000 ($25,000 today) each.

At the center of it all was a grand staircase featuring multiple types of finished wood rising to a dramatic landing on the second floor illuminated by a nine-foot by-11-foot stained glass window. Newspaper accounts put the value of the house at over $250,000, or nearly $10 million dollars today.

To show off their Masterpiece of the Midwest, the Allens planned a housewarming party as posh as the mansion. A caterer from one of Chicago’s most opulent hotels was reserved and the house decorated accordingly.

Six-thousand dollars was spent on the meal and $2,000 on sprawling floral arrangements for each room. On the evening of Jan. 29, 1869, 1,000 guests walked through the 12-foot tall arched doors at the foot of the tower to be greeted by the Allens and impressed by the lavish style to be found on the hilltop home in Iowa. The celebration was reported in newspapers from as far away as New York and California.

As haute as the reception may have been, the party, so to speak, did not last long. Allen bought a bank in Chicago and purchased a house there. Spending more time in the Windy City than Des Moines, his family moved with him and Terrace Hill sat largely empty. Then, three years later, the Great Recession of 1873 saw Allen lose much of his fortune and his businesses, as well as his Des Moines home, mortgaged.

Creditors attempted to wrest title to the mansion away from Allen, but with the assistance of his legal counsel, Hoyt Sherman, the manor was saved, with all surrounding real estate being sold off (including to Sherman).

Following continued legal battles with creditors, in 1884, Allen, who had moved to Los Angeles, sold the house to his former business partner, Frederick Hubbell.

Allen had invested in the fruit orchards in California and maintained a modest lifestyle. He made occasional visits to Des Moines calling on old friends, Sherman and Hubbell. He died in 1914 at the age of 85 and is buried underneath a small marker bearing his name at Woodland Cemetery in the Capital City.

The Hubbell family continued to occupy the mansion and maintain its grandeur for nearly 90 years. In 1972, the title was awarded to the state of Iowa and the Terrace Hill Society Foundation, which would preside over the estate and refurbish it as the official residence of all future governors of the state.

It remains as a symbol of the potential and prosperity of Iowa on this 155th anniversary of its Grand Housewarming and is recognized as one of the greatest residential edifices of America’s West.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.