Pink Manitou home not the governor's

I have heard the home at 631 Manitou Ave. (the pink stone house in front of the congregational church one house east of Pawnee) referred to as the old governor’s mansion or the old territorial governor’s mansion. Does anyone have any information?
- Rachel Diedrich

ANSWER: Manitou Springs historian Deborah Harrison said Alexander Cameron Hunt, the fourth territorial governor of the Colorado Territory, built a home in Manitou, but not that one. Apparently the rumor started that the governor had lived at 631 Manitou Ave., and the story stuck. Harrison is interested whether anyone knows which house was the actual Hunt home.

Hunt held the office from 1867 to 1869, but was ousted when President Ulysses S. Grant wanted a political crony in that position. Hunt also built a house in Alamosa, the historic Hunt-Ball House.

Harrison said the pink stone house was built by Robert Richens with pink and white sandstone from the Manitou quarry. Richens, who was a Manitou town trustee in 1877, also built the church in downtown Colorado Springs that became the Village Inn restaurant and is now Eden night club, Harrison said.