IN THIS HOUSE
Editor’s note:
In This House is a new feature that will be published from time to time in The Press. It’s not just an ad for an interesting piece of local real estate; the goal is to relay something of the value the family feels for the place they’re putting on the market, where perhaps pencil marks behind the refrigerator chart the children’s growth, and the barely discernible burn mark on the wall where the Christmas tree used to be where Fluffy resided — and does now eternally.
First up is the glorious Fort Grounds neighborhood home of Marlo and Mark Faulkner, penned by Ms. Faulkner herself.
If you’re a local Realtor and have decided to sell a nice home with stories it could tell, contact Mike Patrick: mpatrick@cdapress.com
I was born in the midst of World War II. Mom and Dad had an apartment in Spokane, where she was a nurse. He worked in Coeur d’Alene running his cruise boat, the “Seeweewana” and driving the marine mail route on the lake. My mom was called to Deaconess Hospital to assist in a birth. Not married, the mother could not keep the baby. The baby girl was me.
I was adopted and taken to the house in Coeur d’Alene my Dad bought for $3,400, without telling Mom. It was war time and Farragut Naval Base had taken over the area with a desperate need for housing. Four couples came to live upstairs. Mom commuted to Deaconess on the Urban Railroad that ran from Coeur d’Alene to Spokane. Mr. and Mrs. Eklund came to live in our house to take care of me and to manage the Navy couples who lived upstairs and to keep track of Dad’s three youngest brothers who had taken over the basement.
I grew and prospered in this crazy environment. One of the Navy men was in charge of the photo lab at Farragut and always had a camera and film. My favorite picture is of me at almost 2, sitting on the grass in front of the house (now, painted white) wearing a sailor cap and laughing at our neighbor, Dr. Schini’s, dog, “Lady.” My grandmother had a chow. In my memory, he was big. She used to bring him to the house with a pony bridle and a small saddle. I would ride him while Mr. Eklund led him around the park.
We had a one-car garage, shingled like the house. It stayed forever unpainted and housed my dad’s favorite Nash sedan. In heavy snow winters, he would get on its roof and shovel the snow on to what had been Mom’s summer vegetable garden. When he was finished, he let the neighborhood kids climb through the snow and slide off the roof into the snow pile. There was a giant blue spruce at the corner of the garage. It got so big that Mom convinced him to donate it for the city’s Christmas tree. He did. They accepted it. It blew down in an early winter storm. That’s when they planted a city tree at the base of Fourth Street.
Christmas was special for me. Since the Navy people were away from home, I became their focus. Presents and songs filled the house. Neighbors came to exchange gifts and to play Santa, especially the Hamlets from across the alley. The Navy people taught me songs of the time. I loved the silly words of “Marzy Dotz and Dozydotes …” I wasn’t until I was middle-aged before I discovered it was “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.” I knew all the words to “Bell bottomed Trousers Coat of Navy Blue.”
Soon the war was over. I had learned to read. My room was filled with books. My favorite was the set called “Little House.” It was full of stories and poems and illustrations by Arthur Rackham. I wish I still had it. I started first grade at Sherman School (now, an NIC administration center). That was when my grandmother came to live with us. A good Irish Catholic, she was appalled that I was in a public school. Off I went to the IHM Academy on Ninth and Indiana to learn properly and to take piano lessons after school. Loved my teacher. Hated the piano. My dad was so pleased I was taking lessons that he bought a piano for the living room so I could practice at home. I would have much rather been outside with the “Fort Grounds Gang” playing “work-up” baseball in the park or having apple fights with garbage can lids in the alley.
In summer, we were all in the water all the time. Sometimes, Florence Shelton, who lived across what is now known as Sherman Court, had Mr. Anthony from her business, Valley Ice and Fuel (where the Ice Plant townhouses stand), bring a truck down with a hundred-pound block of ice. He would toss it on her side lawn. All of us would pounce on it with our own personal ice picks for chunks to suck on in the heat. When the ice was worn down and all cracked, Mrs. Shelton would use it to make the best peach ice cream ever.
I loved my room. My parents never moved their bedroom out of the main floor office space. I inherited the biggest bedroom in the house. It had its own bathroom, a walk-in closet, and a fireplace — the latter being boarded up. It came with an Art Décor chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a vanity with a giant round mirror. I had my own drop-leaf desk for school work. I was allowed to have the room painted any color I chose. Aqua. Yikes. And, in keeping with local trends, when Mom had the living room ceiling sprayed with what looked like cottage cheese with a dose of glitter, she had my bedroom done as well. I hated it until the day in 1998 when we were restoring the house and we demolished the ceilings.
I inherited the house from Mom when she died in 1994. My husband, Mark, and I decided to move “home” and to restore what we could and to update it to our taste. We removed the knob and tube electrical and all of the lead plumbing. The house now boasts all new wiring and copper plumbing. We replaced the furnace and added air conditioning. We bought a new hot water tank and had a push added for instant hot in the second-floor bathrooms. We tore off the five (yup, five) layers of roofing and demolished the shed roof design, replacing it with a front gable. The two sides of the bungalow were designed to accommodate a “Japanese” curved roof. We saved those lines and had a fine carpenter duplicate the facia and corbels.
The original broad front porch became a new side entry off Sherman Court as there is no longer parking allowed on Park Drive. The new entry is the original door and sidelights turned to the new porch. We had the door hand-carved with the Craftsman aphorism, “Hic Habitat Felicitas”: Happiness lives here. It does.
We spent two years designing the house room by room, incorporating straight grain Douglas Fir with the original white maple floor. Bob Healy created over 20 leaded and etched windows. All of the original windows were replaced with casement double-paned low-e glass. We added a tiled terrace for a lake view in front. At the back, Mark has created an enchanting four-season garden with water features and a fishpond surrounded by a custom laid stone wall. The new garage reflects the lines of the house and has a potting center for the garden. Upstairs sits a full apartment I use for my office and library.
When we were in the midst of the restoration, a neighbor new to the area drove by and saw me getting my groceries out of my Volvo wagon with its California license plates reading “83814.” She yelled at me, “Thelma Finney would roll over in her grave to think a Californian was destroying her home.” For once in my life, Thelma’s daughter kept her mouth shut.
We have purchased a new home in the area — all on one floor! Mark and I both have orthotic knees and arthritis has moved in. I was 78 in May. He will hit 88 next August. It is time to sell.
If you love the lake and the park and the Fort Grounds, Kathleen Tillman (208-699-2210) and Joel Pearl (208-964-2388) have the listing.
