Mansion Issue A Dog For Governor

“Governor’s mansion.” The phrase conjures up grace and charm, archways and lace curtains.

Now try: “Governor’s condo.”

That’s what top state lawmakers have in mind to remedy Idaho’s lack of an official residence for the governor. We’re one of only six states that don’t have a governor’s mansion. We’d be the first with an official condo.

Lawmakers are eyeing an 11-story office and condominium tower that’s going up just two blocks from the state Capitol. It’s a trendy place. Already, retiring Boise Cascade CEO John Fery has bought two units. Other big names are rumored to be considering the place, which will have spectacular views.

“If the governor wanted to walk to work, he could,” said state Senate Majority Leader Bruce Newcomb, R-Burley.

Newcomb and other legislative leaders say a condo would be a better investment than a mansion. “If the time comes that we want to sell it, you can sell it and make money on it.”

But others think the idea is nuts.

“Mrs. Batt has a little dog,” Rep. Kitty Gurnsey, co-chair of the Legislature’s Budget Committee, said of Idaho’s first lady. “Where’s Mrs. Batt going to take her dog to poop if they’re going to live in a high-rise?”

Gurnsey said there are two houses on the market right now that the state should be considering buying for the governor. Both are within the state’s price range, have views and room to entertain and are near the Capitol.

The governor “needs a little green grass and trees, what we in Idaho consider a home life,” she said.

Don’t expect Gov. Phil Batt to help with this decision. He hates the issue so much he won’t say a word on it.

The governor rented a place when he first arrived in Boise, causing lawmakers to worry that the governor’s wife had to go to a Laundromat. (She did.) He vetoed a $10,000 living-allowance appropriation that his predecessor had used for utilities, maintenance and such. Then he bought a home in southeast Boise.

But a new legislative committee is gearing up to provide a governor’s residence - whether the governor likes it or not.

Splitting off

Real-estate ads in Boise invariably list new homes as boasting the “popular split-bedroom plan.” We were mystified. None of the ads in North Idaho or even Spokane mentions anything of the sort.

What does it mean?

Well, according to my real estate agent, it means the master bedroom is at one end of the house and the rest of the bedrooms are at the other. That way, he says, parents aren’t forced to listen to the Ace of Base.

That setup certainly isn’t unheard-of in North Idaho, according to Allen Plahn, an agent with John Beutler & Associates in Coeur d’Alene. “We build houses like that all the time,” he said. “It’s a great floor plan.”

Could it be that this just isn’t as important a selling point in the North, where teenagers are perhaps better behaved?

Center of what?

What a difference 400 miles make. In telling folks in Coeur d’Alene that I had accepted a new assignment as The Spokesman-Review’s Boise bureau chief and would be moving to our state’s capital city, the typical reaction I got was a dropped jaw, a blank look and the question, “Leave Coeur d’Alene? Why?”

Four hundred miles south in Boise, here’s the typical reaction to the same announcement: a big smile, accompanied by the question, “You mean you’re returning to the center of the universe?”

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