by chelsi moy
photos by tom bauer

The 83-year-old Italian Renaissance house on the corner of Gerald and Keith avenues has been home to five university presidents, a math professor, a doctor and countless numbers of University of Montana students.

So it’s easy to feel a bit like a visitor.

“It truly is the university’s home,” said Mary Engstrom, wife of UM President Royce Engstrom and the latest occupant of the official residence of the university’s First Family.

Paintings by Montana artists and scenes of the West selected by Mary Engstrom from the Montana Museum of Art and Culture permanent collection decorate the walls of the 1928 home. The mahogany wood and cobblestone floor, which receives an annual polish, shines in the afternoon sun.

The home has 16 bedrooms, including a master bedroom, library, dining room, living room, four guest bedrooms, six bathrooms, kitchen, office, sewing room and a small three-door garage.

The main floor is where the couple hosts university-sponsored galas and events, while the private residence is located on the second floor. The university furnishes the library, living room and dining room, but the Engstroms have added a personal touch.

The turquoise glass bowl that was once Engstrom’s mother’s gives color to the glass coffee table in the living room and in the corner is a grand piano that Royce is learning how to play in his spare time, which anymore is limited to the occasional Sunday evening.

The entryway of the home features a curved staircase, Philippine mahogany woodwork and a cobblestone floor.

aThe library can hold 20,000 books and is a favorite gathering spot in the house.

In the library, family photos and pictures of their adult children are proudly on display. However, the premier spot on a middle shelf is reserved for their only grandchild, 6 months old and dressed head to toe in Griz gear.

The library holds 20,000 books, though many of the shelves are somewhat bare to the surprise of Barbara Theroux, manager of Fact & Fiction bookstore. Royce Engstrom, who comes from a chemistry background, has plenty of technological and laboratory equipment, but not enough books to fill such a large library, said his wife. They’re fans of trading books or giving them away after reading.

Theroux promised to donate a collection of books by Montana authors to help fill some of the space in the library of the presidential residence.

Dating back to the very beginning of the house at 1325 Gerald Ave., there were ties to UM.

A UM math professor began building the residence in 1928 and finished construction at the height of the Great Depression in 1932. It cost $100,000, money that Dr. Nels Lennes earned from writing and selling arithmetic and algebra textbooks.

The colorful rock lining the home’s exterior was gathered from McNamara’s Landing on the Blackfoot River near Potomac.

Bernice Ramskill, whose mother was a secretary in the math department under Lennes, said the house was built as a replica of the professor’s family home in the Chicago area.

The entryway and library are built largely of Philippine mahogany, with extensive carved paneling in the library. The Holland tiles are still in place in two of the six bathrooms.

Two features that tend to spark excitement among guests are the original copper door hinges and the invisible touch-latch closets in the entryway.

Engstrom presses on a wood paneling. What looks like nothing more than a section of the wall opens, which often prompts visitors to ask whether the couple has come across any secret trap doors.

Upon Lennes’ death, the house was purchased in 1954 by Dr. Stephen Preston, a Missoula physician, who owned the house for a year before selling it to the university for use as the Law House.

Between 1955 and 1960, it was a residence for 20 to 30 unmarried law students. When the number of unmarried law students dwindled – and those remaining were unable to pay the maintenance costs – the university sold the home to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Montana under the condition that the church, should it eventually sell the home, offers it to a university group.

The Newman Club, a Catholic campus ministry organization, was established and the home served as housing for 25 Catholic male university students. It was sold back to UM in June 1974 for the purpose of housing the college president.

UM presidents who have resided in the home include Richard Bowers, Neil Bucklew, James Koch, George Dennison and now Royce Engstrom.

The Engstroms have resided in the home not quite a year, but they’ve opened their doors to the neighbors and hosted countless gatherings for university guests, alumni and supporters. Even before the Engstroms had fully moved into the presidential residence, they made sure to have their porch light on for trick-o-treaters on Halloween, passing out candy.

Visitors are often struck by the home’s beautiful entryway, and to add to that grandeur, the couple chose a painting from the UM museum’s permanent art collection to showcase on the upstairs wall, which is visible to those standing in the entryway.

Mary Engstrom, on the home’s back porch.	Unusual copper door hinges often attract the attention of guests.
A.D.M. Cooper’s “Indian Encampment” hangs above the home’s grand stairway, and is one of the Engstroms’ favorite artworks from the Montana Museum of Art and Culture Permanent Collection.	An untitled painting by Delbert Gish is another artwork selected by the Engstroms to hang in the residence.
Several stained-glass details are set in the windows of the dining room.

Mary Engstrom chose an A.D.M. Cooper painting, “Indian Encampment,” to recognize the Native American culture in both Montana and South Dakota, where the couple resided for 28 years.

Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to Engstrom at the time, it’s the same painting her husband selected during the 2009 Campus Picks exhibition at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, where faculty and administrators chose their favorite artwork from the museum’s permanent collection and wrote why they liked it.

“For me, this painting captured the combination of the land, the sky, and the people who inhabited the open landscape,” Royce Engstrom wrote in 2009. “The darkness of the sky is indicative of the storms that so often characterize life on the open plains, and that is what first drew me to the piece. The realism of color and tone, combined with the detail, make this piece especially appealing. The scene immediately brings Montana to mind.”

While the house is grand in many ways, it’s the back porch, which points west toward the large backyard, which Mary Engstrom is most fond of. Where there was once a swimming pool is now a brick patio with two cement benches. Three large arborvitae trees act as a natural fence shielding the home from a bustling Higgins Avenue, and several raised wooden flower beds line the fence, which Engstrom planted with herbs, wildflowers and rhubarb.

“I’ve gardened forever,” she said. “I love to garden. I had to do that for me.”

Sitting in their rustic bent twig rocking chairs staring at the backyard is the place Engstrom enjoys most, she said.

“I love this patio,” she said. “On the rare occasion we get home before sunset, we sit there. It feels like home.”

Chelsi Moy covers the University of Montana for the Missoulian. She can be reached at 523-5260 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tom Bauer is a Missoulian photographer. He can be reached at 523-5270 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .