Dayton artist's home makes history

"Lizard Hall" has found its place in history.

The home at 175 Silver St. in Dayton, where artist Robert Caples and his wife, Rosemary, lived from 1956-58, is the latest Dayton building to be listed on the Nevada Register of Historic Places.

It was called "Lizard Hall" by Caples - who even painted a lizard on a plaque under the house number, because of the desert environment around it and, presumably, its abundance of lizards and other desert creatures.

Caples moved to Nevada as a teenager in 1924 and stayed until 1959. He was born in Southern California.

Though he didn't own the house, it is where he painted many of his famous desert landscapes.

His stepdaughter, Rosemary Brittain, 65, has fond memories of the area. She and her brother, Denny Lake, 63, of Florida, spent weekends and summers with Caples and their mother from 1954-56. She said they were in boarding school back East at the time.

She marveled at the still-standing shed where her stepfather had his studio. The picket fence is the same, she said, though the house, then pink, is now white. "It looks bigger now than it did then," she said.

The building housing Dayton Justice Court was a jail, she said. The Gold Canyon restaurant was an eatery even back then, though she doesn't remember what it was called.

"The town itself looks the same," she said. Pointing to the Old Corner Bar, currently under renovation and soon to become a restaurant, "that was the Arminos' Bar. We used to go over after dinner and play pool," she said.

She said that in the fall and spring, there were Basque sheepherders who used come to town, filling Dayton's streets with sheep.

"There were also some Paiute children that lived there, and we would go hiking in the hills," she said.

State Historic Preservation Officer Ron James said the home is significant for its contributions to Nevada history in the area of art and because Caples achieved artistic prominence while residing in the home. James called Caples one of Nevada's premier artists during the late '50s.

"Listing the Caples House is a rare opportunity to highlight a Nevada artist in the Nevada State Historic Register," James said.

The white cottage at the corner of Silver Street and River Road, and the wooden shed in the back where Caples had his studio, are inside the Comstock Historic District.

Caples' more famous works include paintings of Nevada landscapes and charcoal portraits of this region's American Indians. In the 1930s, he worked for the Federal Arts Project, producing some of his finest portraits of American Indians.

His mural, "Creation," which depicts Nevada's American Indians, is inside the entrance to the Washoe County Courthouse in Reno.

Brittain was pleased that the house she used to have fun in would be included on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I think it's wonderful," she said. "My stepfather was a tremendous influence in my life, and I just was in awe of his work. I have since become an artist in my own right. I think his work could really have a much broader reach."

Brittain, a still-life photographer, spent many years in the Bay area before she and her husband, Frank, moved to Reno. "My art has always been with me," she said. "It's never left."

Brittain said Caples' best work was the landscapes.

"We would go to Pyramid Lake in the summer and he would go out in 105-degree weather and set up his easel and he would paint," she said. "His most astounding work are the desert landscapes. The light was absolutely amazing, and the quality of light in the paintings were extraordinary."

In addition to his art and the influence he had on her, Brittain said the thing she remembers most about her famous stepfather was his sense of humor.

"He had a wonderful sense of humor, a very dry and very esoteric sense of humor," she said. "He was a very brilliant man. I think a lot of people thought he was very serious because he was very deeply thoughtful person, but he could really ham it up."

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.

On the Net

To find out more about the Nevada and National registers of historic places, go to the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office Web site at www.nvshpo.org.