Couple open up Manito Park home for enhanced viewing

The two-story house sat on a hill across from Manito Park, and best of all, it was for sale.

But Nancy Johnson wasn’t impressed, says her husband, Larry, recalling the day more than 20 years ago when he took her by for a tour. “She said, ‘I hate it.’ It did not look like what you see now.”

“No, no, no,” says Nancy with a laugh, emphasizing her husband’s point. “One doorway led into another doorway. It was all compartmentalized.”

“But I said, ‘Check out the location,’ ” he says. “Location. Location. Location.”

And so they bought it.

At the time, Larry promised his wife he would wait at least six months before beginning to remodel the turn-of-the-century home. Seven days after they moved in, Nancy came home from work to find one kitchen wall gone.

During World War II, the four-bedroom home had been converted to a duplex with a second kitchen upstairs. By the time the Johnsons bought the place, it was back to a single family home but vestiges of the conversion remained – kitchen cabinets in an upstairs bedroom, a large bathroom with a clawfoot tub just inside the front door.

“I knew this was the bearing wall,” says Larry, pointing to a central wall. “Everything else in between could come out.”

Larry says he did most of the work himself, calling in a plumber when a job grew too complicated. Nancy says she was his helper. Her main job involved keeping the couples’ three young children out of harm’s way. They both stripped wallpaper, literally inch by inch, only to find more layers underneath.

“We couldn’t peel it all off,” says Larry. “It looked like a body shop in here.”

Nancy says she remembers long work weeks followed by long working weekends. “I wonder now where we got all the energy it took.”

These days, the home’s main story is largely open. Two walls of windows look onto the park, a stunning vista that seems almost pastoral. The lone visible building, the Park Bench Restaurant, will sit quietly for another two months before warm summer days will bring the stone structure alive.

From the outside, the Johnson’s home defies Spokane’s favored Craftsman style for a more boxy look, almost like a old farmhouse. Inside, it feels modern with warm colors: walls in shades of brown, couches in cream, wood trim in off-white. The oak flooring is stained as dark as bitter chocolate.

“We didn’t restore it,” Nancy says.

“We remodeled it,” Larry says, adding he doesn’t care for the flowered wallpaper and dark woodwork common to old homes. “We opened it up so we could take advantage of these views.”

While the couple love the home’s contemporary interior, they also love its rich history. They pull out a book on Manito Park’s past, proudly pointing to several photos that show their house, lonely in early shots but gaining company as years pass. In the early 1900s, the aviary sat across the street and behind that, the bear cages.

They also enjoy the park’s activity.

“We’re really ‘people’ people,” Nancy says. “We like to go out and visit.”

“Happy people come to this park,” Larry says. “Nearly every reason they are here in the park is a good reason.”