Partner Gilbert Millikan
Queer Places:
2216 Raymond Ave, Missoula, MT 59802
Growing up in Missoula, MT, Gilbert Millikan admired the Queen Anne house where his surviving partner, David Richards (born June, 1926), lived until 2020. The couple resurrected this house and several other in the neighborhood since 1975.
Through the 1950s and 1960s and into the 1970s, Millikan witnessed the destruction of many historic buildings in his hometown. Seeing the potential of the elegant old Queen Anne house on Raymond Avenue, he and David Richard purchased it in 1975 and began to restore it. Millikan and Richards had known each other since they were kids. Millikan’s aunt was married to David’s great-uncle. One of Richards’ ancestors singed the Declaration of Independence. They were both born and raised in Missoula. After Richards graduated from college, he went out to Hollywood, where he spent the greater part of eleven years writing for many television shows. They became reacquainted after he returned to Missoula in 1965, and they became partners in life until Millikan’s death from brain cancer in 2003. Richards worked as an architect for more than 30 years and designed many fine homes in Missoula. He designed the new garage and sunroom addition to the Raymond Avenue house and the gazebo so that they harmonize with the original house. Millikan and Richards also owned a duplex and artist’s studio adjacent to the Raymond house, plus all the houses in the adjoining block, which were rentals. One was a brick house nearly as old as their house. Its floor plan wasn’t much, and they wanted to make it into a nice rental, so Richards designed a new interior.
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