House with an Eye: History's All-Seeing Eye (8 photos + 1 video)

In the heart of Leadville, Colorado, stands a historic redwood house. Its façade is crowned by a hypnotic stained-glass window in the shape of a giant eye.





This "House with the Eye" was built back in 1879 by Canadian architect and carpenter Eugene Robitaille. According to the plaque, the eye symbolizes the all-seeing eye of God, a sign of truth and providence.



Rumor circulated in the city that Robitaille installed this window to cast a curse on the nearby red light district. However, this is just a legend. In reality, the eye was a nod to the architectural fashion of the time, when builders loved to decorate building facades with unusual stained glass windows.





The architect himself lived in this house for a short time, soon moving to the neighboring building, and used his original mansion as a model to show clients. After Robitaille's death in 1935, the house became a museum, which operated from 1964 to 1987. A long 24 years of oblivion followed, and it was only in 2012 that the museum reopened its doors. The restoration required painstaking work, including the meticulous replacement of that very distinctive stained-glass window.



Today, the house contains hundreds of unique items from the 19th and 20th centuries: antique paintings, catalogs, a Prohibition-era moonshine still, a display case full of pistols, and even a horse-drawn hearse. It's important to note that none of these items belonged to Robitaille himself. They were all donated by the residents of Leadville.



"The House with an Eye" doesn't aim to depict the everyday life of an ordinary Victorian home. Instead, it has become a living monument, preserving the varied and bizarre history of its city.