Of the hotel.

## a local piece of history... now has a new owner.

We're talking about the miller mansion on the esplanade in chico.

Cecile juliette is live this morning at the mansion with this fascinating inside look... cecile?

This morning, we're unlocking the mystery of the miller mansion..

The mansion was recently purchased by wayne cook, who owns the diamond hotel in downtown chico..

This is the white mansion that has green shutters that's behind a gates on the esplanade.

What many people don't know is that on this property used to sit the daniel bidwell mansion, which was built in and around 1871..

It was a second bidwell mansion that was dismantled.

This morning, you're going to hear from charlie carroll.

He was best friends with roy miller..

Carroll helped dismantle the original daniel bidwell mansion, known as 5 oaks, and he helped preserve several important parts of 5 oaks that then went into this mansion.

1946 it was overgrown with unkept leaves and ivy, i thought it was very ornate on the exterior, the interior, you couldn't see very well, it was very dreary looking and dark.

But it was a beautiful building, they had no power tools in those days, they just used a hand saw and a hammer, and it was very well done, but it just wasn't restorable, and why is that again mostly termite infestation, a lot of the walls were dry rotted clear up on the inside, the walls were not hollow, they were clap board crossed, and it was solid about 4 inches thick, very very well built, ms miller didn't want to let go she wanted it restored, they assessed the entire building, and it was not restorable, was there a fire on this property, there was a fire on the front porch, and a fire in the interior, but it was never burned down, as has been reported it appears that there are 2 of the original giant 5 oaks left on this property.

Wayne