Nebraska Governor's Mansion

About this property

The Nebraska Governor's Mansion is the official residence of the governor of Nebraska and his family. Located in Lincoln, Nebraska, it is a modified Georgian Colonial home which began operation as the governor's residence on March 17, 1958. The Nebraska Governor's Mansion sits on an entire city block, emphasizing the importance of the office and the building. The grounds are landscaped to include large lawns, gardens, walking paths, and a fountain surrounded by an imposing wrought-iron fence which was added in the late 1990s. The primary entrance to the residence on the north facade is off-center and marked by six white Doric columns which support a two-story dentiled pediment featuring a high roundel window. The twelve-paneled door is flanked by sidelights and a transom window all of which have cross-hatch muntins. The doorknob is from the original governor's mansion which was demolished in the mid-1950s. The windows on all sides of the rectangular, brick building feature decorative shutters and jack arch lintels. On the west side of the building is a one-story, three-stall garage with flat roof that doubles as a porch for the adjacent second-story guestrooms. A one-story sun room was added to the east side of the building to balance the opposite garage and is similarly by a porch which is also surrounded by white wood panels and brick columns. Windows on the east and west sides of the building are less formally arranged than those on the front of the building, focusing more on privacy and comfort inside the home than appearances outside, with single rather than double windows in bathrooms. The original Nebraska Governor's Mansion was a Neoclassical Revival private home built in 1890 for D. E. Thompson. In 1899, the state of Nebraska purchased the property, its furnishings, and the two lots upon which it sat from Thompson for $21,385 ($828,000 in 2025 dollars). However, beginning in the mid-twentieth century, the age and floor plan of the building made it a poor choice for the governor's residence. Portions of the building had been condemned by the fire department and it was felt that the private family areas of the building were too large while the reception areas of the building were too small. From 1945 to 1953, the Nebraska legislature discussed various solutions to the problem of the governor's residence, including purchasing a different building and accepting the donation of Frank H. Woods' private home as the new residence. In 1953, it was decided that renovating an existing building would be more expensive than building a new structure, and in 1955 the Nebraska legislature allocated $200,000 to purchasing the lots surrounding the existing governor's mansion and constructing a new mansion.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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