2024 Heritage Homes Tour

This home, built as an investment in 1913, is a modest bungalow in the Craftsman style. Stylistic features include the low-pitched hipped roof with gabled dormer, open eaves, and an asymmetrical façade with front corner porch tucked under the primary roof and supported by a single boxed column. Original exterior materials include a tall, stuccoed foundation and narrow clapboard siding. Like several of its neighbors, the construction and development company of Thompson and Carpenter built this house as a speculative investment. A partnership between Herbert Thompson and Frank Carpenter, the company was most active in the decade between 1907 and 1917 when it built homes for individual clients across the city while purchasing land and putting up homes which it sold or rented as real estate investments. The firm was known to buy whole blocks in the East End before building houses valued between $1,200 and $1,600.

Thompson and Carpenter bought Block 3 of the Warm Springs Avenue Addition in January of 1913 for $6,150 and immediately filed building permits for the construction of several small houses on both sides of the block. By November, rental advertisements for one of their new “five-room bungalows” promoted its location in a “good neighborhood” just two blocks from the trolley line and paved streets. Mrs. B.M. Etter began renting 1310 E. Jefferson from Thompson and Carpenter in January of 1914, and the firm sold most of the block and its newly constructed houses to Fredrick and Kate Brown in December of that year.

Fredrick Brown was a native of London who emigrated to Canada before eventually crossing the U.S. border. His career in mining began in Colorado, where he honed his skills as an assayer and mining engineer. Brown’s expertise took him to Idaho, Mexico, and eventually New Zealand, where he managed major gold and silver mines and made significant technological contributions to the mining industry. During his time there, Fredrick met and married Kate Kingsford. In 1910, the Browns returned to Idaho and settled on the Boise Bench. Frederick soon expanded his real estate investments by acquiring the East End properties which he and Kate rented until their deaths.

Current Homeowner: Jerry and Kelli Fulton

• Photo Credits: Idaho State Historic Preservation Office & Justina (Nina) Lindgren

Preservation Idaho helped rescue this charming Craftsman house from demolition when it was threatened by the expansion of St. Luke’s downtown Boise campus in 2018. Moved from its original location on West State Street to the East End, the house once again serves as a single-family home.

Henry and Hattie Blucher built this house at 103 W. State in 1913-14. An article in the Idaho Statesman notes that the local architectural firm of Wayland and Fennell was to design the $3,000 “modern bungalow.” Henry, who raised and sold sheep like his father, only lived in the new house until November of 1918 when he died during the Spanish Flu pandemic. His wife, Hattie, lived in their home until her own death in 1940.

The house remained in the family until the death of Henry’s sister Rosa in 1971. St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center eventually acquired the building and altered it for use as the Women’s Life Center. Beginning in 2015, the hospital announced plans to expand their downtown campus requiring the demolition of several important historic homes. Preservation Idaho led advocacy efforts and pushed for relocation for some of the buildings. In 2018, Steve and Kerry Calverley entered negotiations with St. Luke’s to acquire several of the threatened houses and relocate them elsewhere.

The Calverley’s moved the Blucher House to its current location on East Bannock Street and began renovation in the spring of 2020. The building was set on a full basement which doubled the livable square footage. Five layers of roofing were removed, the enclosed front porch was reopened, and inappropriate windows removed and replaced with period-appropriate double-paned sash. Original Craftsman design features in the living and dining rooms have been repaired and retained including doors and hardware. while the hardwood floors were refinished. Historic lighting in the dining room was preserved along with some of the built-in cabinets, wainscot, and boxed ceiling. New plumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems were installed.

Rescue and relocation of the Blucher House was no small feat. Steve and Kerry Calverley’s tasteful renovation earned the project an Orchid Award from Preservation Idaho in 2021.

Current Homeowner: Lane and Christina Ward

• Photo Credits: Idaho State Historic Preservation Office & Justina (Nina) Lindgren

This small vernacular house’s simple massing and lack of ornamentation suggest the Minimal Traditional style popular in American residential architecture following World War II. This impression is likely attributable to a $1,900 addition in 1949 that enlarged the living room to the east and may have involved other alterations to the exterior. The addition’s clinker brick chimney is the home’s most striking architectural element, but shingle siding and historic multi-pane wood windows and front door contribute to the traditional if unembellished aesthetic.

Katherine Clark had this house built as a real estate investment in 1936. A trained and certified teacher, Clark never married, and her career in education was often interrupted by employment at Boise civic organizations including the Southwestern Idaho Institute, the Salvation Army, and the Young Women’s Christian Association. She supplemented her income with frequent, and occasionally lucrative, real estate investments. Over four decades, Clark bought and sold Boise properties near Hyde Park and elsewhere in the North End, West End, and Downtown. Her largest investment may have been in 1924 when she purchased the entire half block on the south side of East Washington street between Pierce and Haines. Following construction of the house at 1319, Clark rented the property to various tenants before selling it to Albert and Faye Hooper in 1940 for $3,650.

Born in Utah, Albert “Bert” Hooper was a sales manager for Raymer Motor Co. in Boise at the time he purchased this house from Katherine Clark. By 1950, he owned and managed Hooper’s Used Car Sales in downtown Boise. Faye passed away in 1971, and Bert followed in 1984 at the age of 89.

Current Homeowner: John Biesak

• Photo Credits: Idaho State Historic Preservation Office & Justina (Nina) Lindgren

Boise City building permit records confirm that this small, simple, one-story vernacular cottage with a pyramidal hipped roof and minimal architectural embellishments dates to the summer of 1912. Built as a speculative investment by Thomas Wade McQueen for $500, the house quickly sold for a $200 profit in August of that year – just two months after the building permit was issued. McQueen sold the Washington Street house to a partnership of John Oscar Rose and Seraphin D. De Cloedt. Rose and De Cloedt rented the house for two years before selling it in June of 1914 to Charles and Susan Arbuckle – the first owners to occupy the dwelling.

Charles Arbuckle, a native of Illinois, settled permanently in Idaho in 1894. Self-described as “the oldest Democrat in Idaho” at his death, Arbuckle was elected and appointed to a series of political posts. Elected in 1899 to represent Owyhee County in the Idaho legislature, his vocal backing of Idaho’s first game law resulted in his appointment as Idaho’s first State Game Warden by Governor Steunenberg. Later, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him U.S. Deputy Marshal for Idaho – a post he held from 1914 to 1918. His career in law enforcement continued as lead detective and then Chief of the Boise police department. Following an unsuccessful campaign for mayor in the spring of 1923, Arbuckle sold his house and left Boise.

When Arbuckle advertised his home for sale, he offered it at the price of $1,200. The “three-room house” had “two good porches, electric lights,” and a chicken house and coal shed on a large lot with lawn, shade trees, and berry bushes. Later owners enlarged the three-room cottage in 1933 and made alterations to the windows and porches.

Current Homeowner: Randi Beth Albrechtsen

• Photo Credits: Idaho State Historic Preservation Office & Justina (Nina) Lindgren