Restoring grace to Swan’s Nest
Randy and Christy Rost mindfully honor the largest historical home in Breckenridge
By Kimberly Nicoletti
SIDEBAR: A snapshot of Christy Rost
The Rosts chose Breckenridge for their second home because they desired a location their two grown sons would want to visit.
When the couple married 34 years ago, they lived in Houston, Texas for 12 years, moved to Paris for a year while Randy Rost helped design an oil refinery for the Hungarian government, and have settled in Dallas, Texas.
Christy Rost always loved cooking and entertaining; at about age 7, she began fixing multiple-course breakfasts for her sisters on Saturdays, complete with fruit cups, ginger ale with cherries on top and cereal followed by cinnamon toast (she wasn’t allowed to use the stove while her mom was still asleep).
She worked as a nurse, but while in Paris, she was “greatly influenced by the way people entertained,” she says.
Eventually, she wrote a cookbook and started programs revolving around entertaining for stores in Dallas. After only two programs, Macy’s hired her. She also worked as the food editor for a local Dallas paper and has hosted “Just Like Home,” which airs in Fort Worth, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Fargo, N.D. for 14 years.
She has successfully marketed her brand, celebrating home and family and has two cookbooks out, with a third on the way.
“I’ve always been on a mission to bring people back to the table to dine as family and friends,” she says.
STORY:
As Randy and Christy Rost spent 31 years building their family and careers, the largest historical home in Breckenridge endured its tenure as a kids’ camp, as if it knew, one day, someone would restore it to its former splendor.
“This house waited for us for 31 years of marriage,” says Christy Rost, renowned chef, in her PBS special, “A Home for Christy Rost: Thanksgiving.” “It was our home, and it was waiting for us.”
But 34 years ago, Christy and Randy didn’t even notice the approximately 5,000-square-foot white spread as they snowmobiled just south, within viewing distance, of it during their honeymoon in Breckenridge.
And they couldn’t have imagined the synchronicity: In 1898, Ben Stanley Revett — known as the Dredge Boat King because he extracted millions of dollars worth of gold from Breckenridge by pioneering the dredge — built the home for his cultured wife, Mary. In an attempt to please her (and soften the blow of plucking her from the city and sticking her in the cold, unsophisticated mountains), he built the home with two extended wings, to simulate a swan. He named it “Swan’s Nest” and hosted lavish parties within its walls. By 1904, the dredge boat business dried up, as did Revett’s deep pockets. Financially devastated, the family abandoned the home. It remained vacant until becoming a hunting lodge and a camp for kids at two separate times before it was condemned. By the time the last couple, the Campbells, purchased it around 1969, the home’s name had fallen out of fashion.
When the Rosts bought it three years ago, they felt compelled to use its original name. Now, whenever they host a party, they invite guests to “Swan’s Nest.”
“It feels full circle,” Christy Rost says, referring to the couple’s affinity with swans: When Randy proposed, two swans glided on the lake below the bridge they stood upon, and swans adorned their wedding cake.
The vision
When the Rosts began searching for a second home in Breckenridge, they intended on building upon a vacant lot. One day, they accidentally took a left, and stumbled upon Swan’s Nest.
For decades, Christy Rost fantasized about restoring an old house, just as they had done when they first married.
“I used to dream about moving back because we put so much of ourselves into that little house,” Christy Rost says. “It gets in your blood, and there’s something about bringing the beauty back that was built 100 years ago.”
But when they first saw Swan’s Nest, they wondered if they could make the “house” a “home.” The structure, built as a summer dwelling, had little insulation and drafty windows. Wooden floors and trim needed massive refurbishment. A golf ball placed on one end of a room rolled to the other, due to the 4 1/8-inch drop in the floor. However:
“By the third time we looked (at Swan’s Nest), we had fallen in love with the house, and I had a vision (of making it) gracious and warm and a place that would make people feel welcome.”
From the beginning, Randy Rost, a real estate developer and broker who holds a degree in civil engineering and an MBA, paid close attention to detail. Originally, he had planned on hiring a general contractor, “but as it turned out, I became the general contractor, because it was a very complicated project and people didn’t want to get into it,” Randy Rost says. In fact, some contractors recommended gutting the place because historical restoration demanded too much. “It was very hands on.”
“He audited everything and was fully aware of every opening in the house,” says Bill Tinker of All Electric Company in Breckenridge. “He and Christy were top notch. Their involvement in the building far surpassed normal customers … he didn’t miss a trick. Anytime you’ve got a customer who’s interested in what you’re doing, it’s just a lot more fun.”
Transforming an ugly duckling
The Rosts knew the structure’s foundation was a problem, but when they delved into the matter, they discovered it was much worse than imagined.
Though the framework of logs and beams Revett built upon was “first rate” according to foundation project supervisor Larry Reeve, over time, water seepage had rotted them. The solution involved excavating, removing old materials and replacing the beams. The problem: shoring up the house in the process, then driving 72 concrete piers into the ground, replacing the beams, and transferring the structure’s weight load onto the new foundation — all without allowing the dwelling to collapse.
In the end, the team lifted the structure 6 to 8 inches, and when the Rosts put their trusty golf ball to the test, it didn’t move a millimeter.
When it came time to install the heating system, the crew fit tubing in 15 separate zones, so the couple could efficiently heat only part of the home when just the two of them visited from Dallas, Texas. But a pressure test showed leaks in the tubes, which delayed the project by about three months. Without heat, the entire restoration stalled, because winter comes early to Breckenridge, preventing construction workers from drywalling, painting or doing anything adversely affected by freezing temperatures.
Walking through, step by step
Digging into a historical house always brings surprises, but what the Rosts discovered astonished them — and seasoned building professionals.
“What amazed me was the amount of goodies they found,” Tinker says.
One of the bathrooms on the third floor looked like a kids’ camp, with a trough sink and multiple piping where toilets sat. The Rosts aimed to transform the large area into a gorgeous guest bath, with a tub perched under the antique oval window. When they opened up the wall next to the window to install sinks, they found a pocket — the oval window had been painted shut for generations by homeowners who didn’t realize the window slid open.
The Rosts also rearranged the floor plan slightly, some of which involved eliminating dropped ceilings created in the 1970s. Removing drywall uncovered a couple of transom windows between rooms.
But perhaps the most touching discovery was a letter, found in the wall of what is thought to be Revett’s bedroom. Christy Rost believes it was a copy, or an original, Revett secured there purposely, but no one can be sure. Part of the correspondence read, “and I therefore write to ask you, whether under the circumstance, you would try and help us out of our difficulty by making a temporary advance of $25,000.”
What the Rosts didn’t find was Revett’s gold — they were about 90 years late for that; looters had stripped the house of furnishings in 1916. While searching for gold, thieves damaged the original flagstone in Revett’s gold vault, which adjoins a small kitchen (originally Revett’s office). Revett constructed the room with a 2-foot-thick rock wall entrance, blocked by a steel door. He used nine railroad ties on the ceiling, so no one break in from the top. Brick walls contained breathing holes, just in case Revett ended up stuck inside.
“Ben stored his fortune in here,” says Christy Rost, with a smile, about the vault. “It’s where I store my wine.”
Though the Rosts restored the adjacent small kitchen — even revealing 112-year-old fir floors — she wanted a new, 650-square-foot kitchen for her PBS shows and entertaining. The 13 ½-foot ceilings mirror the unusually tall ceilings throughout Swan’s Nest, and allow for maximum storage. The Zodiaq countertops by DuPont consist of quartz, making them impervious to stains and bacteria (unlike granite). Her KitchenAide oven includes the latest steam technology, so Christy Rost can inject a certain amount of moisture when roasting, baking bread and cooking fish.
“It’s great for high altitude, where things dry out,” she says.
In front of the bay windows, which open to Breckenridge Ski Resort, the Rosts will place an original chopping block from the 1880s, found in the house.
“I wanted the feel of a brand new house while integrating some of the historical features,” Christy Rost says, explaining how she desired the inside of the addition to look new, while still blending with the exterior. “It’s a 21st century kitchen added onto a 19th century house.”
Throughout the original structure, everything Revett built was grand, including the doors separating each room. Historical accounts say Revett stood 5 feet, 7 inches “and almost that wide,” so he fashioned 42-inch-wide doors to accommodate his large frame.
From the kitchens, the home flows into large rooms designed for entertainment. The first room welcomes guests with Christy Rost’s always-lavish dining décor. In the second, a fireplace becomes the focal point. The Rosts restored it by adding new, hand-carved corbels and matching ornamentation.
“I felt it needed to be renovated in a gracious manner that befitted the history of the house and the man who built it,” Christy Rost says.
She also adorned the home with its original red beaded hanging light, complete with red stained glass, a purchased Chonbeck chandelier (the likes of which hang at Buckingham Palace, the White House and the Vatican) and a five-tier waterfall style crystal chandelier with four satellites and seven matching wall sconces, made of 20 crystals. During construction, Christy Rost disassembled the waterfall chandelier and inserted each crystal into slots of wine boxes to store — that’s how she knows there are 282 crystals on the ornate fixture.
The next room is smaller but extends the social gathering area.
“I like multiple seating areas because it creates wonderful flow and great conversation,” Christy Rost says.
The couple’s master bedroom sits at the end of the string of open rooms. It had acted as the billiard and smoking room, and the original fir, which covers the walls, ceiling and floors, was in poor condition. Behind their headboard, one can still see where a door had been cut to allow access to the back porch.
Their master bathroom previously had been a poker room, complete with red velvet flocked wallpaper. The Rosts transformed it into an expansive and sophisticated space, accenting the cabinets with 18-karat gold filigree holding cut crystal knobs. Another touch of gold — and salute to Revett — stands out in 12 glass accent tiles in the shower, created with gold leaf behind them. Christy Rost chose to paint the walls with what she calls “Bermuda pink.”
“The color always surprises people, but when you live somewhere it’s winter eight months out of the year … the warm makes me feel like I’m someplace different,” she says. “This makes me feel like I’m in Bermuda, and it’s feminine, and I wanted that.”
Upstairs lies three bedrooms, including the northernmost, which people believe to be Revett’s. A series of stairs lead to the rooms, bolstered by hollow posts, which the Rosts found filled with candy wrappers from kids at camp. The Rosts haven’t finished the upstairs, yet.
“The house is still underway, and in order to get it right, you have to take your time,” Christy Rosts says. “The décor should evolve to reflect the homeowners.”
An exterior bridge leads to one of the servants’ quarters.
“Randy’s office is in one of the servants’ quarters, and mine is in the other, and somehow, that seems appropriate because we’ve done a lot of hauling and cleaning,” says Christy Rost, laughing.
But no matter how much the couple has worked to restore the house in the past three years, they cherish it, and its previous owners, as if they were their own family.
“I always think about the people who used to live in this house,” Christy Rost says. “Their story was part of the house.
Restoring grace to Swan's Nest
Randy and Christy Rost mindfully honor the largest historical home in Breckenridge.
