Starr Kempf

Starr Kempf was raised on a small farm in Ohio, near the Swiss Mennonite community of Bluffton.

His family, including his father and seven uncles, were blacksmiths and carpenters, from whom he learned craftsmanship and engineering at an early age.

He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art on a scholarship, where he received high marks for his paintings and drawings.

He married recent German immigrant Hedwig Roelen in 1942, who was a nurse at Glockner Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs.

In 1948, they purchased the property of their future home in Cheyenne Canyon, where Starr designed and built a house and art studio.