This house was built by Randall Wungnema and members of the Wungnema Family for his wife, Mama Hope, as an anniversary present. When the family moved out, the house had a second life as a bar, the Sniveler’s Inn.
Unfortunately, it was demolished and a bank/office building were constructed on the site. This is a sad reminder that we need to protect and preserve our historic buildings.
This is the Corpus Christi Catholic Church on Snyder Avenue. While the church is not on the campus of the Stewart Indian School, it is immediately adjacent to the school grounds.
“On 15 of June, 1949, the Bureau Indian Affairs granted the Catholic Bishop of Reno permission to use an acre of land at the Stewart Indian School in Stewart, Nevada, to use as a mission and school. Later that year, with the help of Native American stone masons Joe Burkeheart and Randy Wungnema, construction commenced on a 2,900 square foot building.
By May of 1950, the church was ready, and the first mass was celebrated by Bishop T.K. Gorman. Stone for the church was taken from the Federal quarry east of Carson City. The church owes its unique look to the fact that the inside mortar was mixed with brick dust, and the outside mortar was mixed with coal dust.” (http://www.ccchurchcc.org/our-story.html)
The Wungnema Family was known to use coal and/or dust in the mortar they used in their masonry projects.
The entry way and grotto was added by members of the Wungnema Family in the late 1970s. The stonemasons on the addition were Randall Wungnema, Donald Talas, and Inez Raymond. The supervising foreman was Louis K. Koontz.
In 2009, the parish moved to Douglas County, Nevada where a new Corpus Christi had been built. The beautiful pipe organ was moved from the original church to the new church in August of 2015.
The original Corpus Christi Catholic Church building on Snyder Avenue was returned to the Washoe Tribe on February 1, 2016. Prior to the tribe taking ownership of the building, the altar and all sacred items were moved to the new Corpus Christi Catholic Church building.
The original Corpus Christi Catholic Church building is now on private land. As such, please do not trespass. Instead, you may admire this fine example of Native American workmanship from across the street.
This house and the pump house are on North Carson Street, approximately a block south of the Burger King.
Not much is known about the house. We couldn’t find any information about the building on the Carson City Assessor’s Web site. Supposedly, the house was built to repay a debt. We’ve been told that house was built in the 30s by one of the Native American stonemasons at the Stewart Indian School (SIS). According to local lore, the stonemason owed the property owner some money.
The property owner wanted a small house built on the property and made a deal with the stonemason – build a stone house for him, the property owner, and the debt would be forgiven. The property owner would provide the land (naturally) and building materials while the stonemason would provide the time, talent and tools.
And, so, a deal was struck – the house and pump house were built. For as long as anyone can remember, the house stood vacant, nobody lived in it. It just stood on the extreme northern edge of town until progress surrounded it. And while it was never vandalized, it recently (within the last five years) was fenced protect the buildings from vandalism, graffiti, teen-aged partygoers and the like.
The fencing makes it difficult to see the house and pump house; however, we feel better knowing that both buildings are now protected.
The weather’s been cold and nasty, so we’ve been staying in. Finally, cabin fever got the best of us and we wanted out. We decided to take a ride to Sparks. See, we had heard rumors of a large, pink stone house in Sparks. And then we found pictures of the house on a realty Web site, the site even had the address. So, we were off!
The house is on Wedekind Road located between cookie-cutter apartments and, shall we say the “grittier” stretch of Wedekind.
We rounded a corner and there was the house – only, it wasn’t just one building, it was three. The lot size is enormous providing sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of city life.
The house and outlying buildings were constructed in 1939, the year the building program at the Stewart Indian School (SIS) began to take off. At this time, more and more people in Northern Nevada were using the students from masonry, electricial, carpentry, blacksmithing, and plumbing programs at Stewart.
We believe that this compound was completed by the master and student stonemasons from the school. Until the school closed, the students in the building trades often built stone houses in Nevada and California.
Another indication that this was built by the stonemasons from Stewart is the fact that there is turquoise and onyx among the stones. The Wungnema Family (master stonemasons at the SIS) is known to have used those stones as their trademarks in their work.
There is a house, a garage (we think) and what is called a studio. Plus, a wishing well – this feature has been found in at least two other residences in Northern Nevada built by the stonemasons at the SIS: One being the Hershey house in Carson City and the other was located at a private residence in Carson City. We know the well at the private residence was built by Randall Wungnema.
This stone beauty is approximately 3,700 square feet and sits on 1.4 acres. The house sold in November of 2021 and from the real estate listing on the Internet at that time, we discovered that this single-family property could be either refreshed or the property could be demolished and up to nine individual, cookie-cutters type apartments constructed on the property.
To us, it is problematic when a real estate listing includes wording indicating that the property can be redeveloped for an increased revenue stream. The property is described as an “exciting investment opportunity,” To us, that is the kiss of death for these wonderful buildings.
This property is a piece of Nevada history and deserves to be respected for its role in providing shelter and helping to bolster the local economy in the post-depression years. Sure, the buildings could do with some touch up masonry work. Fortunately, there are some Stewart-trained Native American stonemasons in the area who could to that work!
Perhaps, the new owner would be willing to work with local and state historical offices to have the property designated as a historical building. The property could be rehabbed and either used for a family – wouldn’t this be a great place to raise a family? Or it could be used as a community resource (an art gallery such as the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City comes to mind.)
See https://shpo.nv.gov/ for the Nevada State Preservation Office and https://www.historicreno.org/index.php for the Historic Reno Preservation Society. We think that there are financial benefits to having these structures designated as historic buildings. Financial benefits such as tax breaks and grants.
We hope that this house and the outbuildings are preserved for future generations.
(Originally published October 2019) We had a happy accident last week – we were Googling (this is a word – Google says it is!) this and that, when we stumbled across Moon Dune House at Lake Tahoe. Moon Dune is a stone house built in the 1930s. So naturally, we had to take a closer look.
The Web site for the house (moondune.com) was interesting and provided verification that the house was indeed built by Native American stonemasons as well as the family. Now, that has to be a first – a joint venture between a family and Native American stonemasons. All the more reason to go see this beauty in person!
Always up for a road trip, we set one fine Friday morning to go see this house ourselves. It was late fall and still warm enough that we did not need heavy sweaters or coats. Best of all, the summer tourist season was over, so the roads around the Lake were relatively free of traffic.
We knew we were there when we saw that glorious gate protecting the property as it has done for so many years. We looked at the chimney on the north side of the house – yep, sure looked like the work of Native American stonemasons.
We then walked down to the beach and were able to see the house up close and personal. It’s even more beautiful in person than in the photographs and the beach provides the perfect setting for this home!
The thing that sets this house apart from other homes built by the Native American stonemasons is the window treatment. All of the other stone buildings created by the Native American stonemasons have keystones for the windows and, sometimes, the door frames. Not this house. No, from what we could see, the windows and doors were framed in wood and the family inserted the stones they had collected on their travels around the wood frames.
We could clearly see the transition from those stones set by the stonemasons to those stones set by the family, which adds extra charm to the house. The pieces of Onyx and Turquoise interspersed among the other stones are especially striking!
Stepping back for a better look, we noticed a small stone chimney jutting out to the side of the house. Oh, what was this? We walked back up the beach to the front of the house. Next to Moon Dunes was a fenced property – the fence being too tall for those of us who are vertically challenged! Fortunately, not all of our party was vertically challenged, so we were able to get a picture of small stone structure inside the fence.
We decided to call this building the bonus house! It was either a small house or cabin, a perfectly sized building. From the construction, it appears that it was built at the same time as Moon Dune. Why, though, was it off to one side and separated by fencing? Good question and while we don’t know the answer to that question, we do have our own theory. We think that, perhaps, this small building was an outbuilding for Moon Dune and over the years, the lot was divided into two parcels. One parcel has Moon Dune on it while the other parcel has this small stone building on it. That’s our thinking. If anybody knows the real story, please share – we’d love to hear it!
We thought that, having spent so much time at Lake Tahoe searching for the homes and churches built by the Native American stonemasons, we had found them all. And we were wrong.
Finding Moon Dunes showed us that the Lake is big enough and wooded enough that there may well be more stone buildings around Lake Tahoe that we’ve yet to discover. We’ve heard rumors that Native American stonemasons from Carson City built two, large stone houses in Tahoe City and Rubicon Bay. Apparently, the house in Rubicon Bay is on the beach and can be seen from the lakeside.
Winter’s coming and we probably won’t do much exploring until April or so of next year. In the meantime, we’ll use what technological resources are available to us to determine if we can find more of these stone beauties at Lake Tahoe. Of course, if anybody happens to know where to find a stone house or two of Native American construction and wants to share that information with us, we wouldn’t say no!
