MARTINSDALE — If ever there were a house with personality — better make that bursting with personality — it’s the Charles M. Bair Family Museum on the outskirts of town here.

Behind the sedate, white, wood siding and blue shutters are rooms overflowing with family treasures. Flamboyant ’60s décor, often in heart-throbbingly loud colors, rubs shoulders with Charlie Russell cowboys, Plains Indians artifacts and portraits from Louis XV’s court.

Eclectic, quirky, extravagant, elegant and, at times, downright homey, the museum’s treasures have drawn a steady flow of visitors to the sprawling Montana ranch house since reopening for the summer last week.

The museum was closed by the board of directors from 2002 to 2005. When it reopened in 2006 and 2007, much of its valuable art — pieces by Charlie Russell, Henry Sharp and J.K. Ralston — had been loaned to the Yellowstone Art Museum and replaced with replicas.

Last week the Montana Supreme Court dismissed the museum board for breaching its fiduciary responsibilities. A new museum board is to be appointed and the original artwork returned, according to Anthony Johnstone, assistant attorney general.

A tour this past Wednesday offered a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the Bair family, one of Montana’s most prominent historic families.

From the framed family photos, the Bairs seemed equally comfortable chatting with U.S. presidents as visiting with Crow Indian friends, Hollywood movie actors or dear friend Charlie Russell.

Patriarch Charles M. Bair came to Montana as a conductor on the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883, and went on to amass a fortune from sheep ranching and shrewd investments.

In 1894, he went into sheep ranching on a 320-acre claim in Lavina. The family first lived there in a sod house, according to tour guide and museum director Sandy Solberg.

Eventually, his sheep-ranching operation became one of the largest in the world with 300,000 head. But it was his investment in thawing machines that initially made him wealthy. He sold the contraptions to gold miners during the Klondike gold rush.

Over the years, the family lived in Billings, where they first took to collecting antiques, and later in Portland, Ore.

In the 1930s, Charles and his wife, Mary, and daughters, Alberta and Marguerite, moved to their Martinsdale home.

And after World War II, Marguerite and Alberta made 20 trips to Europe, collecting art and antiques. As they collected, the ranch house in Martinsdale grew rooms — 26 total — to accommodate their treasures.

After Charlie died in 1943 at 85 years old, and Mary in 1952 at 87, their daughters continued to reside there. Although Marguerite and Alberta “were very opposite of each other in personality, they were very close,” Solberg said.

It was Marguerite whom Alberta credited for having an eye for antiques, Solberg said. She was the homebody who made many of the interior decorating decisions.

It was much to the family’s surprise when, at 50, she eloped with the ranch foreman, Dave Lamb.

It was, however, Alberta who apparently inspired the most local legends. A lover of parties, she was also considered “a real hickory chip off the old smoked block,” taking after her father.

She was a shrewd businesswoman — independent and strong — who also enjoyed giving tours of the family home and telling stories of how the various treasures came to be in the family collection.

An array of her flamboyant hats rests on a bench in the raspberry-sherbet-colored front hallway. Alberta would don a hat before answering the door, Solberg said. If a friend stood on the doorstep, she’d take it off and say, “Oh, we just got home,” and invite them in. If it were a salesman, she’d say, “So sorry, we were just leaving.”

There, too, she kept a .22 near the door for shooting gophers out of the front yard. Both women apparently loved to hunt. Local legend holds that Alberta was known to drive her Cadillac into a nearby field to bag a deer.

Alberta spent much of her time running the ranch from the family kitchen. With its red counters and floors, turquoise walls, yellow cabinets and 1960s décor, it’s boldly cheerful — even when it’s pouring rain outside as it was Wednesday. A much-loved and well-used black-and-silver, wood-burning cookstove still rests in the corner.

Alberta and Marguerite also were well-known for their generosity, Solberg said, and supported an array of philanthropic projects from scholarships to hospitals, museums, the arts and Boys and Girls Clubs, as well as the creation of the Bair Family Museum upon Alberta’s death in 1993.

Not far from the kitchen is the Pine Room, where the Bairs enjoyed entertaining guests.

It holds one of the finest private collections of Plains Indians art and artifacts, including intricately beaded vests and tobacco bags.

Also displayed is one of Alberta’s most prized possessions: a small, beaded vest she received from Chief Plenty Coups when she was a child.

Crowding the table tops are silver tea sets, a biscuit keeper in which Alberta kept her corn chips, and other ornate silver serving dishes, some made by Paul Storr, a famous 19th-century English silversmith.

Here and throughout the house are photos by Edward S. Curtis, noted for his portraits of Indians and documenting the Indian way of life.

Once again, the color of the furnishings are vivid — fire-engine-red leather seating, red curtains and matching sofas and chairs with scenes depicting hunting dogs among large showy flowers. Ceramic rooster lamps bearing fringed shades rest on a nearby table.

Around the corner is the dining room, where a multi-tiered crystal chandelier hangs startlingly low over the English dining-room table. A painting of Louis XV’s daughter looks down from one wall. On another is a replica of a still life of apples by Henry Sharp, a well-known artist and a family friend.

Daddy’s Room is an arresting statement of hot pink and emerald green — it apparently didn’t look like this when “Daddy” was alive. It now holds a bed in which Marie Antoinette once slept, as well as a brilliant pink-and-gold daybed that looks like something a fainting princess would collapse onto. There are also four richly colored paintings by French artist Edouard Cortes.

Equally lively is a bathroom with gold-plated faucets and fixtures in the shapes of swans. Gold Greek gods march along the walls on gilded wallpaper. And, oh yes, the bathroom comes with its own chandelier and white daybed.

The final stop is the teal-blue office, where much of the oak parquet floor is covered by a rich red rug. Along one wall hangs the family’s collection of autographed photos of U.S. presidents the Bairs met over the years, including both Roosevelts, Truman, Coolidge, Hoover, Kennedy and Johnson. Charles Bair made a point of meeting the presidents, said Solberg, because of the large amount of public land he leased for his sheep and livestock operation.

Wing chairs in red-and-white fabric depicting European peasant scenes, an antique desk from France and an antique gilded clock from London keep company with a Russell watercolor, a Cortes painting of Paris and a painting of a rural European landscape by J.F. Herring and George Cole.

Nearby hangs a 1750s rifle reportedly fired by Daniel Boone, an Austrian officer’s antique pistols and still more Indian artifacts.

At that, the tour winds to a close.

While the museum is dazzling now, it’s expected to grow even better under the direction of a new museum board dedicated to making it a museum in the spirit that Alberta Bair intended.

And some day, in the not-too-distant future, the Bair Museum’s treasured art is expected to return home.

If you go

Location: 1 mile south of Martinsdale, which lies between White Sulphur Springs and Harlowton.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last tour at 4 p.m.)

Open daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day; in May and September the museum is open Wednesday through Sunday.

Prices: Seniors, $3; adults, $5; children (6-16), $2; under 5, free.

Information: 572-3314 or www.bairfamily museum.org

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com