Nick Mastronardi and 1914 House

Building a culture of respect among his employees, to say nothing of rehabilitating an historic building in Niwot and turning it into a terrific restaurant – 1914 House – are just a few of the many accomplishments of Nick Mastronardi. A former Wall Street trader for Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, Mastronardi moved west to Colorado, and seven years ago, created a fascinating new life in Niwot.

"I snowboard now," he said. "I love spending time with my wife and four children and five grandchildren. They are all local and I get to see them a lot – unlike when we lived in Manhattan – and this has definitely been a blessing of my life."

It's not to say that moving west in the 1990s and then buying a decrepit building in 2014 that needed total restoration was easy. Or that opening a restaurant and keeping it thriving during the hiring difficulties and Covid shut-downs of the last few years has been easy either, but Mastronardi had an infectious smile on his face as he described his latest adventure.

He's clearly a man who loves challenges.

"I have such respect for restaurateurs," he said."It's so intense, so 24/7. Even on the days you're closed." It has been especially challenging, of course, because of Covid.

"The greatest challenge has been hiring, especially hiring in the kitchen," Mastronardi explained. "The unemployment rate in Colorado was already 2.8%." And then with recent government payments to workers who weren't working, it became abnormally difficult to find help.

Presently, 1914 House employs 30 local residents, including local high school students from Niwot High School, Silver Creek High School and Longmont High School. The high school students aren't old enough to serve as wait staff or serve customers alcoholic beverages but they serve as hosts at the front desk and bus tables. Their smiling presence enhances the dining experience. They are also learning a lot.

Justin Hirschfield is our "head chef," Mastronardi said. "He had a dirt bike accident 20 years ago which is why he's in a wheelchair. He's 46. He's been involved from the beginning."

Hirschfield had been a chef in Boulder "at a great Italian restaurant, when he approached me seven years ago and we started working together," Mastronardi explained.

Three of Mastronardi's four adult children have also worked – or still work – in the restaurant. "When the plans went forward in 2014 – after we renovated this historic building – my daughter Isabelle "opened it with me and she did an amazing job, meeting people, walking the floor. Isabelle ran it like she had decades of experience. She was only 27."

The building housing 1914 House has a long history.

Mastronardi purchased the building in 2014 – when it was 100 years old and in need of renovation. It had been built in 1914 by Reverend William Taylor, a local ordained minister, who had been operating a grocery store in the Left Hand Grange building a few doors away and wanted to expand his business. At one point, it was called "The White House," and later, Earl and Sylvia Knaus, relatives of Alison and Seth Steele of Niwot Market, ran a mercantile and grocery store that operated through the 1960s.

In the 1980s the building housed an antique store on the lower level, but the building was seized by the Boulder County Sheriff's office because the owner was accused of selling cocaine from the upstairs office. In 1984, It was purchased by a group of Niwot businessmen, who remodeled the building into a restaurant known as "Rev Taylor's," operated by Marc and Sherry Faulkner, who later purchased the building in 1987. Rev Taylor's served breakfast, lunch and dinner, and had a large clientele of locals as well as customers from surrounding towns. The Faulkners retired in 1999, closed the restaurant, and sold the building to Chris Finger in 2000, who owned Chris Finger Pianos on the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue and Murray Street.

For the next 14 years, the building was used primarily for storage of pianos and the condition deteriorated. Building codes changed, and most of the restaurant equipment had been sold off.

"It took us a year and a half to remodel it" before opening the restaurant, Mastronardi said.

Living in Niwot and running a popular restaurant at 60 years of age is certainly a different reality than how Mastronardi grew up.

He was born in New York City, grew up in Westchester County. Mastronardi said, "In my first life I was a trader on Wall Street." A successful trader at Goldman Sachs, Mastronardi and his wife who had three young children at the time, were in their early 30s and started realizing "we wanted a different lifestyle than in Manhattan." They traveled to Colorado in the 1990s where he said, the "seed was probably planted" for the massive lifestyle change they succeeded in making many decades later.

"I'm so proud of this," Mastronardi said, extending his arms outward to the restaurant. "More proud than anything I did on Wall Street. We created a culture of respect, and watch young folks develop" – to say nothing of restoring a historic Niwot building, building community and developing a wonderful local restaurant.