Snyder: From A Pointed Roof To Living Room Of Scientists - 7:20 am
By Sharon Snyder
Los Alamos Historical Society
In the first three years of the Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS), the masters and boys all lived in a large, two-story log building known as the Big House. It contained rooms for students and masters, sleeping porches for the boys, a small library, classrooms, a kitchen and dining area, and a common room with a large fireplace.
Perhaps with an eye to the future, LARS Director A.J. Connell had a square wooden structure built to the west of the Big House c.1920. The plain frame building couldn’t have been called aesthetic, but it offered quarters for two masters, each room with space for a desk and dresser and a bed on a sleeping porch. The new accommodations were soon referred to as the Pyramid, an appropriate name for a building with a four-sided pointed roof. The masters who moved into the Pyramid gained privacy but left behind modern amenitie
Snyder: From An Artist’s Studio To Oppenheimer Residence - 8:13 am
Los Alamos Ranch School Master Cottages 1 and 2, known today as the Hans Bethe House and the Oppenheimer House. Courtesy/Los Alamos Historical Society
By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society
The houses of Bathtub Row have seen many occupants through the years and have many stories to tell, but the name Oppenheimer lends a special aura to one of those houses. It had existed for thirteen years before it became the temporary home for Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer, their young son, Peter, and daughter, Toni, who was born during World War II.