Haven of history

COEUR d'ALENE — A 29-foot-tall cement grain silo towers over a Greensferry Road property just south of the Spokane River on the Coeur d'Alene side of the Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls border.

A curious hawk circles above, keeping a watchful eye on Patrick Record as he finalizes a restoration project to replace the cedar shakes on the nearly 100-year-old grain silo.

Barn swallows playfully soar from birdhouse to pole top while a sweet-tempered Great Pyrenees rolls about in the grass. A nearby rooster crows. Leaves and branches cast peaceful shadows on the lawn, fragmenting the Friday morning sunshine.

The old Whitaker homestead where Susan Sloyka has built her home for the past 48 years is not just home, but an old-school North Idaho haven of local history in which she has dutifully invested throughout the decades. 

The silo project is one piece of that preservation portfolio.

Silo salvation

“It was so sad,” Sloyka said. “It used to hurt my heart. I’d pull in my driveway and I’d see it and go, ‘Ugh.’”

The retired school teacher tried for more than three years to find someone willing to restore the roof of the silo, which had fallen into disrepair.

"It looked like a pile of crumbling sticks," said Record, of Rathdrum, who is the owner and sole employee of Record Construction Services.

Their first communication was serendipitous. Record, who seldom advertises, put an ad on Facebook. Sloyka, who rarely goes on social media, woke up in the wee hours of March 10 and responded to his ad.

She’d had several builders come out and look at the project, with estimates as high as $27,000.

“Then he came out and it was meant to be,” Sloyka said.

Record offered to do the work for half that cost.

“The vision we shared is the history of it,” Record said. “It was something we both gravitated toward, one of those things where either of us would love to help the longevity of the history. Right away, I was excited to be able to have the opportunity. I think maybe she could feel that.”

Whitaker homestead

The Sloyka property was once part of the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation. The timbered land behind the south ferry landing across the river from the property of John Green — the namesake of Greensferry — became the 143.5-acre homestead of Claudius A. Whitaker, the deed for the property dated Sept. 5, 1906, and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt.

It took more than 30 years to clear the property of all the timber, which was used to build the first residence on the grounds.

“They just made do with anything they had," Sloyka said. "It’s pretty amazing."

According to "Green's Ferry Country — Kootenai County, Idaho Centennial 1883-1983," compiled by Peg Gott Anderton, Claudius and son Curtis were "examples of men who were made out of the same pioneering stuff as Green."

"They felt an obligation to take over the ferry where John Green left off," the publication reads.

Curt maintained the ferry for a number of years. In 1915, he married Lena Johnson, a school teacher from Tacoma who came to Coeur d'Alene in 1901.

Sloyka and her husband moved into the Whitaker house about six years after Lena passed away, but they did meet some of Curt and Lena's family members before they also passed away.

Sloyka said it was just unbelievable to hear some of the stories of the early days.

“When they built the silo — they were around to see it — they did concrete forms all the way up and at the end they had a big party and put an American flag on the top of it," Sloyka said. "It was a major accomplishment for the family. That was almost 100 years ago.”

Appreciation for the past

Sloyka is originally from New England, where historic preservation is a strong community value. She taught school in Wickford, R.I., which celebrated its tricentennial in 1974, two years before the American Bicentennial.

“I’m sure houses have been insulated and everything," she said. "They’re livable for sure, because I lived in a really old house, but you cannot alter the outside. You have to maintain it and keep it looking quaint. In the West, people don’t do that. They’re like, ‘We have our property rights, we’re going to do whatever we want to do.’ And it makes me sad.”

She said the Whitaker property was within a month of being torn down when she found it.

"When my husband and I pulled into the driveway in here in 1976 and we first saw it, no one lived there, the front door was flapping in the breeze, it didn’t have a for sale sign," Sloyka said. "We were looking for an old house because we were from an area where we liked old houses.

“I walked in the house and I said to my husband, ‘This is it. This is our house,’ and I feel like the Whitakers were like, ‘Yes!’” Sloyka continued. “No one had even cared enough about it to do anything to modernize it, we were so fortunate. No one lowered the ceilings or took out the woodwork or took down walls. I just feel like we’ve honored it through the years and tried to take good care of it and be good stewards of the property.”

She expressed her gratitude to the Whitakers for the homestead they created.

“We felt pretty lucky to find a place that had all of its outbuildings,” she said. “They owned a good share of this property around here and now it’s been reduced. I only have five and a half acres, but I felt lucky to get all the outbuildings.”

Record said he hopes Claudius Whitaker would approve of his work on the silo.

“I often say up there, 'I hope it’s as good as he would have liked it,'" Record said.

Protecting history for the future

As a previous new construction contractor, Record has changed his trajectory to help with restoration and remodels rather than brand new builds. He said he helped build hundreds of homes and apartments in the area, but as the prairie began filling up with work by his hands, it started feeling "against the grain" to him.

"I thought it was something I shouldn’t be doing,” he said. “As a matter of divine intervention, I scraped up enough to have a small vacation and I took it in Wallace in the Silver Valley and there in the hot tub, I was talking to a guy who wanted to restore his whole house. It was one thing after the next — he offered to pay me enough to quit my job and build and restore this old house. That’s how it started.”

He said the silo project has truly been a feat for him.

“It’s built like a clock, 12-sided, and it’s got an ungodly amount of wood and so many of those purlins," he said with a grin. "It seemed like every time I did a count I would end up needing more to match it.”

Sloyka said she feels this project is his magnum opus.

“He restored it to exactly what it was,” she said. “My grandchildren have brought me joy, but those are individual moments. I never knew my silo was going to bring me so much joy.”

Kelly Hicks, a former student of Sloyka's, often visits one of her favorite teachers and loves what she has done to preserve the history of the Whitaker homestead.

“As a Coeur d’Alene native, it’s been heartbreaking to see the loss of not just the land but the historical structures around here," Hicks said. "To see what Susan has here, it’s just so heartwarming to know that someone still values that and that there’s a builder that also values that type of work and heritage."

Sloyka said history tells the stories of a community.

"We have a responsibility to protect and preserve it," she said. "When we tear it down, we lose it and forget it. It's gone forever. There is so much to learn and honor from our past."

    Susan Sloyka goes through historical documents and photos Friday morning while sharing information about the Whitaker family, who homesteaded her property on South Greensferry Road in the early 1900s.
  

    Patrick Record retrieves a piece of cedar from Susan Sloyka's barn Friday morning. Record has spent over a month meticulously restoring the cedar shake roof of the old grain silo on Sloyka's historic property just south of the Spokane River on Greensferry Road. The land was first homesteaded by the Whitaker family in the early 1900s.
  

    Susan Sloyka walks past the nearly 100-year-old grain silo and one of several outbuildings on her property Friday morning.
  

    Patrick Record on Friday morning holds up the original piece of wood that was placed on top of Susan Sloyka's grain silo to hold an American flag when the silo was completed nearly 100 years ago.
  

    Susan Sloyka's home on South Greensferry Road was a month away from being torn down when she and her husband bought it in the 1970s. She has worked to maintain and protect its historic elements throughout the years.
  

    The first Greensferry Bridge, built in 1907. From left: Claudius Whitaker, Ida Whitaker and Mrs. Harvey Davy in 1912.