Among the stately houses in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, one stands out for its sprawling property and mysterious occupant.
A small sign in front reads: “Saint Germain Foundation ‘I Am’ Sanctuary.” This is the first clue about the owner, an organization holding tax-exempt status as a religion — and that some critics view as a cult.
“They don’t appear to have ongoing activity other than the caretaker, whom we see only occasionally,” said Pete Ziverts, a nearby neighbor since 2012. “One Easter Sunday, pre-COVID, we saw a small group — maybe five or six people, nicely dressed in white, who were gone within an hour or two.”
The 14,000-square-foot Colonial Revival mansion sits on more than an acre of land stretching from 7th Avenue almost to 8th Avenue along Ogden Street, all owned by the Saint Germain Foundation.
Liz Eilers lived on Emerson Street, directly across the alley from the mansion, for 16 years.
“Other than one time when I saw a gathering of 50 to 60 people, the house was usually unoccupied. During the spring, I remember seeing five or six octogenarian women enjoying refreshments while visiting in the back yard. Other than those occasions, the house was dark, and there were no holiday decorations,” she told Denverite via email.
White walls and a padlock
The mansion at 975 E. 7th Ave. was built in 1915 by Alfred Cass, an executive with Colorado Fuel & Iron, and his wife Mary Cass.
The Saint Germain Foundation (SGF) purchased the property in 1945.
The house, carriage house, outbuildings, gazebo, and pergolas are painted entirely white. The white motif reflects one of the tenets of the organization — a requirement of purity. This teaching is reflected in images found online and in its publications, showing followers dressed entirely in white.
Apart from a caretaker, the “sanctuary” appears unoccupied. SGF’s national headquarters is in Schaumburg, Ill. Neither national nor local SGF representatives responded to requests for comments about the property, nor do they generally speak with the media.
SGF has sanctuaries in other cities across the U.S., Western Europe and elsewhere — many appearing just as sparsely occupied as Denver’s.
Ann Cuthbertson, a neighbor of SGF for 27 years, echoes the sentiments of her neighbors: “The caretaker keeps the property in good shape, and I only see activity for Sunday morning services, typical of other churches.”
But like other neighbors, she’s curious why the impressive front gates on Seventh Avenue are locked with a heavy chain and padlock.
Time travel, levitation and immortality
SGF’s late founder, Guy Ballard, claimed he was hiking on Mount Shasta in California in 1930 when he encountered a legendary figure known as Saint Germain — whose real name and origin are disputed — lived in Europe nearly 200 years earlier.
Commonly referred to as Count Saint Germain, the historical figure was reputed by some biographers to be an alchemist, linguist, scientist, simultaneously engaged in secret societies, paranormal activity, and magical powers. Time-travel, levitation, teleporting and his own immortality are other predilections attributed to the Count.
Inspired by his encounter with Saint Germain, Ballard, a mining engineer, established the “I Am” discourse under the pseudonym Godfre’ Ray King.
Among other conditions, Ballard’s credos required followers to abstain from ‘worldly degradations’; to pledge loyalty to him in exchange for immortality; and to embrace nationalism. In Denver, U.S. flags are continuously flown in the front and back yards of the sanctuary.
Over the years, the foundation established outposts in many cities and grew to an estimated 1 million members by 1938. Mount Shasta in California remains an integral hub of SGF activity. An elaborate pageant for followers — open to the public — is held annually at the privately owned G. W. Ballard Amphitheater in the city of Mount Shasta.
Debate over SGF’s cult status
Saint Germain Foundation’s ideology meets commonly held definitions of occult movements. A French parliamentary commission labeled the Saint Germain Foundation a cult in 1995.
More recently, author Adam Morris’ "American Messiahs" included Guy and Edna Ballard in his categorization of many 20th-century radical-fringe religion founders as “... self-appointed prophets who tried to upend American religion — and the American way of life,” according to a 2019 book review in The New Yorker.
In the group’s early years in the Depression, Ballard and his wife Edna described themselves as angels and offered a tantalizing blend of money-making tips to a gullible public, Morris expounds.
Promises of healing the sick, stories of space travel, and the approaching end of the world, lured vulnerable people to seek the virtues of an “ascended master” for themselves. Converts were enrolled by mail, with many of them turning over their assets to their supposedly immortal leaders.
In 1940, a year after Guy Ballard’s death at age 61, Edna and son Donald were indicted on charges of fraud for fleecing followers (sometimes referred to as "students") of about $3 million. That’s the equivalent of about $67 million today.
A landmark Supreme Court case
Following a conviction, the case was dismissed in a 1944 Supreme Court opinion (United States v. Ballard) that stands today as a landmark case protecting religious freedom of expression.
The court established that the sincerity of a person’s religious beliefs is more important than whether those beliefs are true or false.
The IRS revoked Saint Germain Foundation’s tax-exempt status in 1941, stating it didn’t recognize the movement as a religion. But a court overturned the ruling in 1957.
Growing to Denver and beyond
Edna Ballard and her son Donald carried on Guy Ballard’s mission, opening a sanctuary in Santa Fe, N.M., in 1942. The previously vacant schoolhouse provided the space needed to operate their far-reaching Saint Germain Press, as well as weekly broadcasts.
The Saint Germain Foundation also expanded to Denver, running a school at the 777 Ogden St. property from 1977 to 1992.
The school eventually outgrew the property and relocated to an 11,000-square-foot facility in Littleton, where it operated until 1997. Today, the K-12 school is located in the city of Mount Shasta.
A spokesperson there told me that one of the conditions of enrollment is a compulsory monthly meeting for parents, to corroborate the “I Am” teachings their children receive.
Childhood memories revived
During the 1950s and 1960s, as a child and adolescent, I grew up one block away from the SGF sanctuary. Along with my siblings and neighborhood friends, I was mesmerized by the Saint Germain scene.
A half-block east of the sanctuary, a sandstone wall anchors a neighboring property. The wall’s capstone was a comfortable perch for neighborhood kids to observe “the ghosts,” as we referred to the worshippers who seemingly floated by us.
Dozens of followers showed up for services, whether it was on a Sunday or a random evening. More women than men, as I recall, all attired in white. Some women dyed their hair white as well.
They were not friendly to children, and I never saw a child with them. Most memorable was their eerie chanting of the phrase “I am,” which is apparently the refrain to the decree recited to them by the “Ascended Masters,” or still-mortal preachers of Guy Ballard’s apocalyptic writings.
Decades later, I returned to a far different scene. On three Sunday mornings in February, I saw only a few cars parked around the property. One older couple arrived on foot. Winter weather dictated heavy coats, but their white pants, stockings and shoes were visible.
While the landmark on Seventh Avenue is imposing as ever, the energy of its mission has dwindled. But then again, “ghosts” are invisible. So, maybe those of us on the outside aren’t privy to all that happens within those white walls.
