Then & Now: From Longmont's founding families to modern entrepreneurship

The house at 920 Third Avenue, built in 1897, is no stranger to the lives of Longmont entrepreneurs. From one of Longmont’s founding families to modern entrepreneurship, the Fox-Downer House is a property rooted in Longmont’s businesses.

The house was originally built by Frank Wiggins for Jarvis Marvin Fox and his family. Fox and his wife, Lida Cole Fox, were part of the Second Chicago-Colorado Colony arriving in 1872. According to city history, Fox built Longmont’s first flour mill and would be a signatory for Longmont’s documents of incorporation. Fox also was one of the key figures in building St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, which is still standing at Fifth Avenue and Main Street.

Mabel Fox, eldest daughter of Jarvis and Lida, would go on to marry one Frank Downer in 1884. Downer arrived in Longmont in 1881, serving as town clerk, town trustee and eventually as mayor in 1898. One of Downer’s greatest legacies in Longmont was to the local farmers and Longmont’s burgeoning sugar beet industry. As one of the founders of the Longmont Beet Sugar Company, Downer went to great personal lengths to secure a factory that would become part of the Great Western Sugar Company.

When the Downers relocated to Denver, the house was rented out to Charles Hover and his family while their own home at 15th Avenue and Hover Street was under construction. Since that time the house has had a handful of other owners, including present owners Sean and Jocelyn Mullis Gilligan. 

The Gilligans and their four children moved into the Fox-Downer House around four years ago, in part because the barn would be a perfect office space for their business — Longs Peak Advisory Services, or LPA. LPA works with investment management firms, helping them process data and calculate investment performance in compliance with Global Investment Performance Standards, or GIPS.

GIPS compliance is an ethical framework that investment firms use to prevent misleading practices from investment managers and present consistent information for smaller investment firms, allowing them to more readily compete with larger firms like Goldman Sachs, according to LPA. 

Sean Gilligan was working as a partner for a large GIPS verification firm when he saw many of their clients lacked the resources to become GIPS compliant, making it much more difficult for these smaller investment firms to stay viable and competitive. The process of getting verified for GIPS compliance is a struggle for the companies, Gilligan said, so LPA was formed to aid those firms in September 2015.

The Gilligans were living in a house near the Fox-Downer House when LPA was founded, operating their business out of a one-car garage without insulation. Part of the decision to start their own firm was motivated by a need to be closer to home and their family, they said. The firm grew rapidly, as did the Gilligans’  own family, quickly outgrowing the garage. 

The historic property was up for sale and the Gilligans thought the barn would be a perfect office space for the firm, helping to improve the work-life balance and provide workspace for their staff as well. COVID has sent most of the LPA staff to remote work, but the barn is always open for their employees to work and meet as needed. 

The Gilligans said they enjoy the historical connection to the original owners and the spirit of entrepreneurship in Longmont.

“It’s kind of cool to try and carry on some legacy, some way,” Mullis Gilligan said. “I don’t know if it will be as impactful as theirs might have been, but we’ll see.”

Descendants of previous owners have stopped by to visit and reminisce, Mullis Gilligan said, as well as historical walking tours and the occasional history buff. Restorations and updates have happened to the interior of the house and barn, both from the Gilligans and previous owners, but the exterior has remained unchanged except for fresh coats of paint.

“It’s interesting because when you live in a house like this, people stay connected to it,” Mullis Gilligan said. “We love this house, it’s such a perfect house for our family.”