Prairie Home Builders Have Been Scrambling To Get Ready For The 1996 Showcase Of Homes, A Single-Site Show Located On Five Mile Prairie

Builder Brian Wilkes fondly recalls the Five Mile Prairie of his youth, a memory as quaint as the two-room schoolhouse he attended. “Every summer night, all the Five Mile kids would meet at the school to play kick the can or capture the flag,” says Wilkes, 34, “and in the winter we’d ice skate on all the little ponds that would freeze over.

“On election day, there was always a bazaar, and each summer everyone would get together for a picnic. It was a real close community.”

The past three decades have seen development on the 3,400-acre bluff that Native Americans once called “prairie in the sky.”

But time has not totally erased the community’s agricultural ambiance, nor the sensation of being above the fray of nearby Francis Avenue and the city beyond.

Visitors to Spokane’s 1996 Showcase of Homes can sample Five Mile’s semi-rural lifestyle today through June 23. Admission is $5, with children 12 and under admitted free.

This year’s show - the Spokane Home Builders Association’s first single-site event since 1993 - features seven residences ranging from $265,000 to just under $1 million.

In addition to self-guided home tours, the show offers merchandise and service displays, as well as entertainment, seminars and opportunities to meet local builders, architects and financial advisers.

Sunday’s Father’s Day celebration includes free admission for dads, and quick-draw exhibitions by Legends of the Old West from 1 to 5 p.m.

Builder Jim Reugh says the big-top tent, music, playground, workshops and giveaways are meant to “create kind of a carnival atmosphere … a more festive feeling” at this year’s home show.

The previous two shows featured more homes - 27 in 1994, 19 last year - and a broader price range. But seeing them all required driving close to 200 miles, and attendance suffered.

Al Haslebacher, the builder association’s executive officer, says the convenience of a single-site show outweighed the diversity offered by a scattered-site approach. And though the scattered concept “isn’t dead,” he says the association has already chosen Morningside in the Spokane Valley as the site of next year’s home show.

But for now, all eyes are focused on the southern rim of Five Mile Prairie, where builders and subcontractors have scrambled all week in preparation for today’s 3 p.m. opening.

One exception was Brian Wilkes, who managed to finish his $274,500 home ahead of schedule and relax during the final days before his first home-show appearance.

Wilkes worked with architect Steve Meek to create a Prairie Style residence appropriate to the Five Mile setting.

The horizontal lines of the topography are echoed in wide eave overhangs and a mildly pitched, hipped roof. And the impact of the home’s three garage doors is softened by facing them perpendicular to the front entrance.

Inside, the home has a casual, open feel, with auburn-stained maple floors and Shaker cabinets, a tall fireplace of cultured stone (“drystacked” to hide the mortar), and “faux painted” walls and railings by artist Bretta Ballou.

Other features include no-maintenance vinyl decking on the master-suite balcony, and “Smart House” wiring to eventually permit the control of appliances and lights by telephone.

Unlike many custom builders today, Wilkes does much of the finish carpentry himself, employing the skills he once taught as a high-school shop instructor.

Lest anyone forget how intertwined this house is with its agrarian surroundings, the back door opens a mere 30 feet away from a wheat field, “just like the house I grew up in,” says Wilkes.

Builder Mike Murphy has two homes in this year’s show, both presold customs.

His $700,000 “La Maison du Roc,” designed by Scott Diettert of Residential Design Services, features a French country facade of cultured stone, along with a stone driveway, sidewalk and back patio. Also in back is a custom concrete swimming pool.

Murphy’s “Canyon View” is the show’s least expensive home, at $265,000, but he defends it as “a sleeper.”

“From outside people are going to say it looks pretty simple,” says Murphy, “but inside it’s much more interesting.” Features include a sun room with a southwestern view.

To keep costs down, Murphy’s “Canyon View” clients handled landscaping, much of the painting and other chores.

George Paras captures the magic of the Craftsman Style with the help of a design by Curt Schimanski of Advanced Building Designs.

“We modeled the home after homes built on Spokane’s South Hill between 1910 and 1920,” explains Paras.

Exterior details include a cultured stone chimney, cedar-shake siding, wide window trim and tapered porch columns.

Interior details also reflect Craftsman aesthetics, from the five-panel fir doors and hardware to the wainscoting and baseboard trim.

“This is the first Craftsman Style home I’ve built,” says Paras, a frequent home show participant, “but I intend to do more.”

While the Craftsman look doesn’t add much cost to a typical interior, Paras says exterior details can get expensive, both for materials and labor. “But it really shows,” he says.

This house was built for specific clients, but Paras figures he could reproduce it for around $350,000, not including land.

The most expensive home in this year’s show was designed and built by John Henrichs of J&B Construction.

And the 7,600-square-foot home’s $950,000 price tag may be revised upward, Henrichs says, once all the bills are paid.

But the price of admission will get you through the front door to see what $1 million buys in today’s market, besides a spectacular view.

Henrichs points to upgrades as subtle as an extra 1/8-inch of drywall thickness to more obvious details, like solid oak doors, wider halls and stamped concrete walkways. Elaborate wiring allows many electrical features to be controlled remotely, Henrichs says.

The former California builder says he can do smaller houses, too, but wanted to make a strong statement about quality in this, his first Spokane Home Show.

And if the house doesn’t sell right away, that’s OK. “I’d kind of like to live in it for a while,” says Henrichs.

Jim Reugh’s four-level, $319,500 “Kensington III” features an undulating landscape design punctuated by granite boulders. Inside, “There isn’t a room in this house that you need to have a light on, even on cloudy days,” says Reugh. “That’s something we try to incorporate in all our homes.”

Reugh is particularly proud of the kitchen, with its black granite countertops, black appliances, and cherry floors and cabinets. The cherry theme continues in a curving stairway.

Veteran builder Wes Libby makes his first Spokane Home Show appearance with a $298,500 “traditional” plan similar to Reugh’s.

Distinguishing features include coffered ceilings, extensive wainscoting, crystal chandelier and marble fireplace.

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