BARE: Modesto's McHenry Mansion has passed through many hands

As the McHenry Mansion undergoes restoration after December's fire, it seems appropriate to answer a reader's question about Modesto's most celebrated home.

It is a logical query: "How did the city get the McHenry Mansion? Did they buy it, and, if so, how much did it cost?"

A brief historical review is needed.

Two years after Oramil McHenry's death in 1906, his widow, Myrtie, remarried. The groom was lawyer William Langdon, whom the newspapers described as "the fighting district attorney of San Francisco County."

After Langdon's term of office expired, he and Myrtie McHenry moved back to Modesto and into the downtown mansion. Eventually, he became a local Superior Court judge, and the couple had two children. They also were raising young Merl McHenry, whose father was Oramil.

The McHenry period ended in 1919 when the family moved to the Bay Area. Langdon had just received an appointment by the governor to be the first presiding justice of the 1st District Court of Appeals, in San Francisco.

Although the McHenrys left town, they retained ownership of the mansion and controlled its use.

The building soon became a Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium, and there still are people living in this area whose relatives were born in the McHenry Mansion and were treated for illnesses there.

That period ended in 1923 when it was reported that Langdon had converted the building into what the newspapers called a "first-class apartment house."

Eventually, it had 14 apartments, each with a kitchenette and bath.

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BARE: Modesto's McHenry Mansion has passed through many hands