The American Alpine Club (AAC) left New York City in 1993 to move into this former junior high school, which it shares with the Colorado Mountain Club. Built as Golden High School, the three-story Beaux-Arts school building is blond brick with terracotta trim, including poly-chrome columbines blooming at the entrance. The building and landscaped grounds, which occupy a full block, were restored for $500,000 and now house the AAC's 18,000-volume library, a mountaineering museum, a bookshop, and a 300-square-foot scale model of Mount Everest. Gerald R. Cassidy's 1925 painting Dawn of the West, in the main hall, depicts a pioneer family finding gold at the future site of Golden on Clear Creek, to the dismay of Indians in the background.