Restoration Continues On Campbell House

Since 1989, Cheney Cowles Museum has helped hundreds of workshop participants discover the charm of older homes.

They know when it comes to historic restoration, the price of charm is measured in patience and deep pockets.

So does Marsha Rooney, curator of the museum’s Campbell House.

Rooney, who joined the museum staff seven years ago, says restoring Campbell House “has taken far more of my time than I ever dreamed.” Time, plus more than $1 million in state funds and private donations.

The 97-year-old landmark’s exterior has been repainted, and its roof replaced. Gone are the aluminum storm windows. And earlier this week, carpenters began re-creating the home’s original gazebo. The new one should be in place by mid-May.

Inside Campbell House, the kitchen is nearly finished, and the second-floor “mineral room” has been returned to its former configuration of servants’ hall, linen room, maids’ closet, master bath and Amasa Campbell’s private study.

Nine different wallpaper patterns await hanging, new Oriental rugs protect high-traffic areas, and work continues on the third-floor servants’ quarters.

“People love the process as much as they love the final product,” says Rooney. “They’re intrigued by how we decide what works for the house - how we do research, how we produce something, and how we install it.”

The stories that 60,000 visitors hear each year are changing along with everything else in Campbell House. Rooney says that’s because Northwest social history is a relatively new field.

“We know who the fur traders were, who built what buildings and who the prominent men of Spokane were,” she says, “but day-to-day activities are a whole new area of history research.”

Rooney considers Campbell House more than a 30-room time capsule. “This isn’t restoration for its own sake,” she says. “We’re restoring Campbell House so we can teach themes in local history. We want visitors to participate rather than just observe.”

When asked if the restoration will someday be finished, Rooney sounds like most Old House Workshop veterans. “Maybe,” she says with a laugh, “if things ever stop breaking in the middle of the process.”

MEMO: This is a sidebar to the story with the headline: Your old house