Family hangout

For several decades front porches fell out of favor with homebuilders. Residential activities shifted indoors or to the back deck, and communities lost the neighborly connection that spending an evening on the front porch provided.

Now there is a gradual shift back to building homes with front porches — and not just a covered front door.

Spokane homebuilder Clay Johnson has noticed the rising interest in porches. “It started about 10 years ago,” Johnson says. “Before that most of the people we were building for didn’t want anything on the front.”

When Johnson built Roger and Teresa Woodworth’s new home in north Spokane, the couple chose a home plan that included a wide front porch.

“We looked at all of the books of plans and after seven years we realized we had pulled the same plan three times,” Teresa Woodworth says. “We knew that was the one.”

Their large home is situated in the center of a cul-de-sac in a new development. Chairs and a decorative bench provide a view of the growing neighborhood and the tall pines that surround it.

“I was raised in a 1900s farmhouse with a front porch, and I used to sit on the steps and watch the traffic go by,” she says. “I knew that when I got the chance to build, I would have a porch.”

Glenn and Diana Savage moved to Spokane from California three years ago to be closer to their son and his children. They left their custom-built home with its wide wrap-around porch.

“I planned that house in my mind for 10 years before we built,” Glenn Savage says. “But we didn’t have any family down there and there were grandchildren in Spokane.”

The couple purchased a home under construction. One of the selling features was the small front porch. They use it frequently.

“It’s been a good way for us to meet the neighbors,” Diana Savage says. “We sit out where it’s cooler and watch the world go by.”

For Mike and Misty Stephens, the front porch on their Colbert home serves as more than just a place to sit.

When the Stephenses built the yellow farmhouse-style home overlooking the Little Spokane River six years ago, there were two things on the top of their wish list. “We wanted bigger bedrooms for the children and we wanted a porch,” Misty Stephens says. “My husband really wanted a nice big porch.”

Their builder, Mark Herbess, altered their original plan to raise the downstairs ceilings to 9 feet and that allowed them to raise the porch roof as well.

Now, their four children spend long hours playing in the sandbox that sits on the wide wrap-around porch and swinging on one of the two porch swings. In the summer the children sleep out most nights in a small tent set up on the end of the porch.

Misty was given a pair of chickens for Mother’s Day this year and they lived on the porch until a chicken coop was built.

One of their favorite family traditions is watching thunderstorms from the safety of the porch. Several years ago the family ordered pizza and it arrived just a storm swept across the valley below the house.

“We grabbed our pizza and ate it on the porch while we watched the storm,” Misty Stephens says. “Now, whenever there is a storm the children want to order a pizza so we can watch the lightening.”

Teresa Woodworth, a mother of three, notes that several of the new houses on her street have porches. “It’s a way to go back to that small community way of life,” she says. “By sitting there you are inviting neighbors to come and be a part of your family.”

But she concedes that with busy teenagers in the family, there isn’t always as much time for porch sitting as she would like. “Actually, my daughter likes to sit out on the roof under her bedroom window,” Woodworth says. “I guess that’s her front porch.”

Part of the romantic appeal of an old-fashioned front porch may not have anything to do with looking out at the world.

“For Mike, I think the whole porch thing, wanting one when we built our house, went back to when we were dating,” Misty Stephens says. “We spent a lot of time out on the porch.”