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www.thecitymagazineelp.com THE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGNFall 2022 contents 2 12 2 8 The Show Goes on for the Ghosts at The Plaza Theatre A Spectacular Homage to the Elements The Spirit of El Paso Alive in the Magoffin Home 8
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The Show Goes on PlazaThe
3 THE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGNFall www.thecitymagazineelp.com2022For the Ghosts at Theatre | By: ERIN COULEHAN photos courtesy of: EL PASO LIVE |
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“There are stories that have been around a long time,” says Doug Pullen, Plaza Theatre docent. “One of the more famous ones involves a man who was smoking a cigar on the mezzanine level, and I’ve had people tell me that they smelled cigar smoke up there. As recently as this past August, I ran into someone when we were showing ‘Little Shop of Horror’ out on Oregon street and she told me she smelled cigar smoke at the ‘Amadeus’ screening,” he continues.
Prior to being relocated to its current location, Fort Bliss soldiers were buried at present-day Cleveland Square and the downtown El Paso Library. In 1883, Union soldiers buried at the site were exhumed and reburied at Fort Snelling, and it wasn’t until 1893 that the former cemetery officially became part of the City of El Paso.
he haunted history of theaters across the world have intrigued different generations across different cultures from the superstition behind not uttering “Macbeth” inside any theater, to phantoms haunting opera halls, to El Paso’s own Plaza Theatre.
The Plaza Theatre dates back to its grand opening on September 12, 1930 when it served as a film house, and is now home to live performances that include concerts, Broadway shows, performing arts, and more -- but the location has long since been linked to the paranormal.
“If you draw a rectangle around the present business district of El Paso, the northwest corner includes abandoned cemeteries which lay just outside the boundaries of the dusty adobe village once known as Franklin,” reports an article published in 1911 by the Herald Post.
In addition to the soldiers, historians assert that pauper’s graves could once be found near Missouri street where saloons and gambling events tempted residents to indulge their vices.
4 www.thecitymagazineelp.com THE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGN Fall 2022The Plaza Theatre
The Plaza Theatre was purchased by Interstate Theatres in 1933 and functioned as a movie house until it closed in May 1974. Overtime, stories of ghosts and things that go bump in the night were woven like a spider’s web that persisted.
In an article entitled “Ghosts and Goosebumps” published in Plaza Premiere in 2014, writer Myrna Zanetell recounts earlier claims of the supernaturally appearing cigar from the perspective of a janitor employed by The Plaza Theatre during the 1950s:
5www.thecitymagazineelp.com THE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGNFall 2022 The Plaza Theatre
There are stories that have been around a long time. One of themore famous ones involves a man who was smoking a cigaron the mezzanine level, and I’ve had people tell me that they smelled cigar smoke up there. As recently as this past August.
Theatres are among the most common places for paranormal activity (following mausoleums and aged castles), with the combination of superstition, drama, spirit that goes into live performance serving as a perfect witch’s brew for haunted happenings.
“He told about a man in uniform during the 1940s who fell over the railing from the second balcony into the orchestra section below. Some say the victim might have been taking a nip while others thought he was merely careless and didn’t watch where he was going. Years later, patrons would report seeing the glow of a cigarette high in the darkened theatre. Whenever anybody tried to approach the light, it seemed to move farther away so that you could never reach it.”
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Theatre workers have often claimed to hear eerie footsteps late at night. An apprentice sign painter named Pete Flores was so spooked by his experience -- Flores claimed a ghost helped him carry a large sign up a set of stairs -- that he documented his experience in a short story called “The Faceless Ghost.” Flores writes: “As I eased down the stairway to the basement storage area, I could see the figure of a large man dressed in a black, long tail coat and light trousers, with a ribbon tied around his neck. The figure stood motionless in the corner, but I could not see his face because his head faded into the shadows. My blood ran hot and cold; sweat trickled down my back as I stood there frozen in place like a popsicle on a stick. An eerie aura surrounded the man as he began to move towards me. His arms floated slowly upward, as if reaching for the ceiling.
HOME & DESIGN
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If part of the appeal of attending live theatre is the camaraderie of the audience, then guests at The Plaza Theatre can rest assured that they’ll never be alone -- in life and in spirit. SPACES
Another famed ghost tale centers on an event that may or may not have occurred in the 1930s in which a gentleman seated in the balcony went to the lobby for a drink of water but never made it back to his seat. Legend has it that the man suffered a heart attack after making his way down the winding staircase en route to the old fountains that are built into the structure of the pillars. Years later, audience members began reporting stories about a mysterious figure of a man lingering near the water fountain and reportedly disappeared into thin air when called to. Other close encounters of the spooky kind include rumors that two construction workers who worked on the original structure of the Plaza Theatre fell to their death from atop scaffolding. During the mid 1950s, the Plaza Theatre’s assistant manager recalled claims from the janitorial staff that they repeatedly heard the sound of tools falling off the walls by themselves and other strange noises from the building’s cavernous basement long after the theatre was closed for the night.
Suddenly, the room was filled with a white glow of light, and then it turned dark again just as quickly. What was probably only a moment seemed like an eternity. I ran up the stairs and out the door. Standing among the crowds on the sidewalk, I felt safe, but from what?”
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Joseph and Octavia Magoffin moved into The Magoffin Home in 1877, which was erected on property obtained by Magoffin’s father while El Paso was still a small frontier town, reports the Texas Historical Commission. The home is an adobe structure that is emblematic of traditional Spanish and Territorial architecture in the Southwest,
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SpiritedHistoryEl Paso’sAliveintheMagoffinHome
he legacy of the Magoffin family in El Paso lives on through its rich history, landmark structures, and contributions that continue to resound throughout the community. Joseph Magoffin was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and educated in the southern U.S. before moving to El Paso in 1856 to joining the family business, Magoffinsville, his father’s mercantile shop. Magoffin served in the Civil War and later returned to El Paso with his family, where he became instrumental in the development of El Paso and the surrounding area.
Magoffin’s contributions include helping to bring in railroads, utilities, and new businesses that were a catalyst to the transformation into the metroplex El Paso is today.
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Home
The exterior is composed of adobe bricks that between two and three feet thick, while the interior walls are roughly two feet thick. Additionally within the interior, the ceilings in the north and east wings of the home are made milled wood beams that were transported from New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains via wagon. The floors of the home is hardwood, with a handful of the tongues and grooves laid directly onto the ground.
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The Magoffin Home was a magnificent feat of construction that was lauded by local media, and the architecture and interior design continue to whisper the family’s history to modern visitors.
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“The grounds surrounding it comprise twenty acres, embraced in lawns, flower gardens, Magoffin
but is also contains architectural allusions to Greek Revival style that was in vogue in the U.S. at the time.
12 www.thecitymagazineelp.com THE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGN Fall 2022the Magoffin Home
“We have an acre and a half of beautiful land that we keep as an homage to the Magoffins that we maintain and is some of the most peaceful grounds in downtown El Paso,” says WoodWood.invites those interested in the history -- haunted, or otherwise -- to visit and promises quirkiness.
www.thecitymagazineelp.com 13 fruit orchards, vegetable beds, grass plats and small grain divisions,” The El Paso Times reported in 1887. Members of the Magoffin family lived in the home for more than 100 years, with descendants serving in the MexicanAmerican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, the Pershing Expedition, as well as World Wars I and II. Today, guests can glean a sense of the different generations who inhabited the home as different spaces reflect unique time periods that range from 1890 to 1930.
The Magoffin Home and family have inspired people and local lore spanning the late 19th to early 21st centuries, some claiming the iconic home is haunted after reporting mysterious noises. But it seems the home is more spirited than haunted.
“If you think that you’re experiencing weirdness in the Magoffin Home,” says Wood, “keep in mind it’s an old building and is going to be weird.”
“First of all, it’s an old home and that’s always important to keep in mind with old homes,” says Machelle Wood, Education and Public Programs Coordinator at the Magoffin Home State Historic Site, which is part of the Texas Historical Commission. Wood has more than a decade of experience in historic preservation, with an emphasis on “Onefinishes.ofthe things I’ve learned over the years,” she says, “is the Magoffin Home is absolutely no different than other old buildings that have quirks like creaky floors, and doors that don’t open or close the right Woodway.” says other reports of spooky sounds can be attributed to old plumbing systems. The original plumbing dates back to the 1800s and the house was not built on a foundation, which causes sounds reverberate throughout the adobe structure.
The Magoffin Home serves as a museum that is open and accessible to the public, as well as its outdoor areas.
“So if you have sound coming from under the ground above the building, you’re going to hear it and it’s going to bounce off all of those thick walls,” says Wood.
14 www.thecitymagazineelp.comFall2022INTERIORS:COLLABORATORSPAMELA DAILEY AND LAKE|FLATO ARCHITECTS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: TEN EYCK LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS GENERAL CONTRACTOR: THE CONSTRUCTION ZONE Spectac ATHE CITY SPACES HOME & DESIGN
The Franklin Mountain range is a vestige of the planet’s earliest eon, and comprises 1.25 billion-year-old Precambrian rocks -- the oldest in the state of Texas. Quartz mining that occurred more recently in the region creates a sparkly glint as the crystals reflect off the mountains, lambent in the glow of the El Paso sunshine.
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“One of the things that we tried to do,” says Steve Raike, Principal Designer on the project, “is to create an environment where the owner would have a great deal of privacy even though they’re in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. We wanted to create a building that was inwardly-focused and created a really wonderful setting for the family that was based on a connection to the landscape and using the buildings to effectively act as an element that would provide both buffer from neighbors, but also be a wonderful backdrop to the landscape of the courtyard in the center of the design.” Homage to the Elements ERIN COULEHAN photography by: CASEY DUNN
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Lake|Flato Architects recommended erecting another structure made of concrete, stone, and Corten steel that featured a courtyard to connect the two buildings.
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he spectacular and formidable diversity of El Paso’s topography is the inspiration and cornerstone of the Courtyard House, which was designed to compeiment the Chihuahuan Desert and the gray basalt landscape at the base of the Franklin Mountains.
The Courtyard House was completed in 2020 and designed to correspond to the existing natural landscape situated adjacent to the homeowner’s existing cast-in-place concrete residence and was conceived to be a space for both living and entertaining.
The original house was first owned by a single homeowner who later expanded the property once he married and started a family. The homeowner purchased the lot behind the house once it was available so the family could reside in the main house, and entertain behind the home.
The home is an homage to its surrounding elements.
The 11,000 square foot interior of the new structure features two offices, a gym, and a large garage for car collecting. The interior walls are made of quarter-sawn walnut and slatted wood ceilings that create an interesting contrast between the exterior surfaces.
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The sunken courtyard is 7000 square feet and has a multitude of functionality that includes storm water retention and is defined by gabion walls. The courtyard is also the cornerstone of recreation that includes a pool, orchard, outdoor kitchen, and 8-foot overhangs that shade expanses of glass.
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“If you think about architecture as a series of spaces with thresholds that mediate between those spaces,” says Raike, “the landscape design is very similar to that.”
A Spectacular Homage to the Elements
Ultimately, the different thresholds create a cohesive design that connects the buildings through materials, textures, and aesthetics.
“It’s a really thoughtful integration of materials, spaces, and thresholds that allow one space to flow to the next, but also make you very aware of the transition between each space so that moving through the space is a special experience,” says Raike.
“If you think about architecture as a series of spaces with thresholds that mediate between those spaces, the landscape design is very similar to that.”
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