10/24/2008:
A city is ever-changing and ever-growing. Businesses move around and eventually, one place becomes another, until soon, the city’s face is transformed from what it has been a decade, a year or even just a month ago.
In Bismarck, there is a spot along Eighth Street and Rosser that housed many different activities. It was once the old Baptist Church. From there, it became the North Dakota Education Association. And finally, it was remodeled into a Conservatory—into Miss Belle Mehus’ very own dream-conservatory.
On this day, movers were still unloading items into the new studio that would soon blossom under the guidance of her “family”: It would become the personal quarters of Belle Mehus and her cat Rene, as well as a haven for the teaching staff of the Mehus Conservatory and their scads of students.
It was not the auditorium that Bismarck now knows; that’s located on 6th Street. It was a little space full of her “own ingenious, practical and imaginative ideas.”
There was the curved staircase; the multi-colored, irregularly checked pattern of the carpet; the wrought iron railings; the soft green wallpaper “with gold floral tracery” adorning the walls. A mirrored wall in the reception room and the abundance of mirrors throughout the building “reflect Miss Mehus’s conviction that they lend dignity and have a quieting effect on students.”
Royal Hopkins selected “red corduroy for upholstery and drapery, modern paintings and a green carpet” in one room, while David Christiansen had not yet chosen what he wanted for décor in another, and in yet another, “Mrs. Bonnie Evans has the third studio, where tapestries and hangings will be used for decorative and acoustic effect.”
In the “center of the stage” in each studio sat a grand piano, “with an upright in a supporting role.” Each door also had soundproofing.
And in her own, specially contrived space, Belle Mehus had a small but efficient kitchen, a bathroom with pink faucets, a display of her treasures throughout her personal domain, a picture of herself in her youth. No space seemed wasted.
The move in was six weeks behind schedule because everything was to be “just so,” and there was a planned open house for November, but a behind-the-scenes preview of Belle Mehus’ new conservatory was “interesting and revealing.” Revealing, perhaps, because the choices reflected Belle Mehus herself.
By Sarah Walker
Sources:
The Bismarck Tribune, Tuesday, October 26, 1965, page 6