In 1886, Charles Babbitt and his four brothers left Cincinnati and came to the raw frontier town of Flagstaff, intending to become cattle ranchers. Four years later, Charles married Mary Verkamp—also of Cincinnati—and the newlyweds set about making a home in the Arizona Territory.
After living in several temporary houses, the couple hired well-known Cincinnati architect Anthony Kunz, Jr. in 1901 to design an imposing brick and stone residence at the southeast corner of north Beaver Street and Cherry Avenue. Back in Cincinnati, the residential architectural style of the day was Queen Anne Revival, characterized by wrap-around porches, interior chimneys, ornamented cornices, turrets and fluted columns.
The CJ Babbitt mansion in Flagstaff stood in stark contrast to the much more modest—mostly wood and shingle—homes prevalent in the surrounding neighborhoods into the twentieth century.
The lot was subdivided and the back portion was sold to the Elks who built their lodge in 1923. The CJ Babbitt mansion, popularly known as the Pink Castle, was destroyed by fire in 1964. The Elks Lodge survived the fire and become a dance hall, a furniture warehouse, the AFL Union Hall, the public library and in 1988, became home to Theatrikos.
