7/12 - Spokane

We had a great day touring parts of Spokane with my cousins Gabe and Chantelle.  Gabe used to live in Asheville so we’ve known her for decades, but this was our first opportunity to meet her sister Chantelle. 

Our first stop was the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.  Gabe remembers this place as a tiny museum with ratty stuffed squirrels with their fur falling off.  It is now a first class museum which is associated with the Smithsonian Institution.  The ratty squirrels didn’t survive the change. 

After going through the galleries and taking a detour for lunch at a really cool local diner in a railroad car, we went back to go through the Campbell House.  It’s part of the museum and is right next to it. (The new museum was built on the house’s east lawn.)  They’re in the process of putting new roofs on both the main house and the carriage house so, unfortunately, we couldn’t get around back to see the great view over the Spokane River.  

This is a picture off the internet which shows the house as it should be seen.  The picture I took today was of the house surrounded by construction fences and scaffolding and roofing crews.  It isn’t worth including.

The house was built in 1898 by Amasa Campbell who made his fortune in mining in the area around Wallace, Idaho.  This is the same town I mentioned yesterday that had I-90 built over it.  (An extra tidbit of information about Wallace from Gabe, something not found in Wikipedia.  When she was growing up in Spokane, Wallace was the brothel capital of the area.  Sort of the Woodfin of north Idaho. This fact probably wasn’t featured when the town was applying to be on the National Historic Register.)  The Campbell House wasn’t the biggest or the most ostentatious of the houses built here, but it is certainly a very fine home.  It is also unusual in being a one-owner home.  Helen Campbell Powell, the only child of Amasa and Grace Campbell, was married with her own home when her mother died in 1924. (Her father died in 1912.)  She was active in the Eastern Washington State Historical Society and donated the house to the society in memory of her mother.  A major restoration project which took place from 1984 to 2001 returned the house to as close to its original state as possible.  Today it is a house museum. 

These bridges cross the Spokane River.  I’m including this picture because of the beautiful form of the arches under the closest bridge.  I-90 used to run over it before the new I-90 bridge was built at the far side.  The highest one is a railroad bridge.

The next place we visited was the Davenport Hotel, another building on the National Historic Register.  It dates from the early 1900’s.  The full hotel including the towers was dedicated in 1914.  There is much inside that reminded us of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.

Davenport Grand Hotel in Spokane.

This picture is from the internet as I couldn’t get a shot of the whole outside.  It’s a fine looking building but you wouldn’t guess from the outside that the interior is so magnificent.

The hotel was closed in 1985.  It would have been demolished but it couldn’t be brought down by explosives because of all the asbestos that would have been sprayed over the city.  Dismantling and salvage would have been too expensive so it was left to deteriorate for 15 years.  In 2000 local entrepreneurs Walt and Karen Worthy bought the entire city block for $6.5 million, then spent the next two years of their lives and $38 million of their own money to make the Davenport Hotel grand again.  The public spaces and ballrooms were restored to what they would have looked like when they were new.  The guest floors were taken back to bare concrete and rebuilt with new wiring, plumbing, drywall, furniture and fixtures.

Restored ceiling over the mezzanine.

The Hall of the Doges, Spokane’s oldest and finest ballroom, was removed from the oldest part of the structure and re-installed in the new East addition.  The removal was accomplished by lifting the ballroom out intact, making it the only flying ballroom in the world.  (I didn’t find this information in the hotel…..it’s from Wikipedia.)  There are many pictures around the room showing events which were held in it as far back as 1908.

Spanish Renaissance inspired lobby.  The hotel’s architect was Kirtland Kelsey Cutter who also designed the Campbell House.  He was a very well known architect in the Pacific Northwest and California. 

One final Davenport picture.  The entry to the parking garage can be seen to the left.  Cars drive around the fountain to get into the garage.  Fanciest garage entry we've ever seen.

On our way back to Chantelle’s house she drove us around the areas where she and Gabe grew up.  There’s a lot of beautiful natural rock in this area.  Some houses even have miniature mountains in their yards.  This picture is of mini-mountain which has had more rock built on and around it…….a fascinating garden.