Becky Kramer

SANDPOINT – Rising home costs priced Mark and Tal Harlan out of Sandpoint. The couple hoped to buy their first home in this eclectic resort town on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. But after four months of searching, they gave up trying to find a modest house in their $160,000 to $200,000 price range. They ended up north of town, on the Pack River Road.

Plans for 73 more luxury condos are under way downtown, even as Coeur d'Alene's leaders ponder what a spate of high-end development will mean for the community. The Towers at Ridge Pointe is the latest in a series of condo projects proposed for the city's central core. A Montana investment group plans to start construction in August on the $60 million, three-building Towers project, which would be built on 11 acres overlooking the Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course. The property is a forested, rocky outcropping, adjacent to Lost Avenue and 19th Street.

SILVERTON, Idaho – When JB and Monica Howick decided to relocate their small publishing company from Utah, they had a few distinct needs. Easy access to Interstate 90 and warehouse space were both musts. So was a certain mystique. "There's a romanticism in publishing that people both like and expect to see," said JB Howick, president of WindRiver Publishing.

"July 4, Thursday…Gave the expedition a holiday to commemorate the day. Issued to working parties extra issues of molasses, ham, whisky, flour, pickles for a 4th of July dinner … Day spent pleasantly and harmoniously in camp, which was six and a half miles east of Wolf's Lodge prairie …" – John Mullan, 1861

Regal Cinemas rolled out the red carpet for Coeur d'Alene moviegoers Wednesday night. Patrons sipped wine, nibbled shrimp and listened to live music at the opening bash for Regal's new Riverstone Stadium theater.

COEUR d'ALENE – When Ironman USA comes to town on Sunday, Greg Guillet and his son, Nathan, will be sitting around a campfire in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. Their house near Tubbs Hill, however, will be abuzz with athletes. Strangers will sleep in their beds, whip up high-protein pre-race dinners in their kitchen and relax on their couch. For a rental income of $250 per night, Greg Guillet is willing to trade the comforts of home for three nights in a tent.

POST FALLS – Bill Hatch is deep into a lecture on real estate law. His students have been sitting for nearly two hours, but most are diligently tracking the details of Realtors' legal responsibilities in the sale of former meth houses. Contractors and waitresses jot down notes. Investors sit alongside housewives. The class's 58 pupils are a diverse lot with a common goal: They all want to sell real estate. Scores of people are entering the competitive field of real estate, attracted by a sizzling national housing market, visions of lucrative commissions and a short educational commitment.

They didn't make Tin Lizzies like this 80 years ago. Russ Freund's 1924 Ford is a translucent lime green, a perfect foil for chrome pipes and white vinyl upholstery. A buggy top gives the rig a vintage look, but underneath, it's pure hot rod.

POST FALLS – An 80-pound German shepherd can scale a teeter-totter and gracefully descend on the other side. But the feat requires poise and practice. Many K-9 cops struggled on the teeter-totter portion of their agility test Saturday at the Greyhound Park and Events Center. Toenails slipped on the slick surface. Dogs slid back or became unnerved by the sudden movement.

Rose and Brian Hulvey never envisioned their search for a bigger house taking on the competitive feel of a "Survivor" episode. But there Rose was on her lunch hour, dashing from house to house with a real estate agent. Since most of the properties had multiple offers by the end of the day, she couldn't wait until after work to see them. Brian, a long-haul truck driver, got details by phone.

For more than 30 years, a California family has owned Memaloose Island, a graceful squiggle of land in northern Lake Pend Oreille. But now the 13-acre island – home to towering pines, rocky bluffs and a sandy beach – is on the market. The Knight family trust is asking $16 million for the private island near Hope, Idaho, and is preparing to advertise it internationally.

In 2003, Northwest Artists – a local co-op – was in danger of losing its prime retail spot at 217 Sherman Ave. in Coeur d'Alene. The vintage commercial building the co-op had rented space in for more than a decade was up for sale. Offers were coming in from developers who wanted to raze it and rebuild.

Pedicure thrones at Zi Spa reflect the changing nature of Coeur d'Alene. Tuscan Bella foot treatments cost $55 at the new spa overlooking the Spokane River. But customers who lounge on the leather recliners, their feet in jetted tubs, can still see parts of the city's past. The spa's third-story windows frame a distant log yard. A train rumbles by every morning en route to a nearby sawmill.

Bruce Vinson's alarm rings in predawn darkness. By 5 a.m., he's folded his 6-foot-5-inch frame into a brown vinyl chair in front of a console controlling a circular saw. The next nine hours play out like a video game for the DeArmond sawmill worker.

When Marshall Chesrown bought 650 acres of forested land overlooking Lake Coeur d'Alene back in 1997, a few other developers told him he got taken. Four thousand dollars per acre was a steep price to pay, they said, even for a pretty parcel with resident elk and water access.