Homes At The Park Corbin Park Area Neighbors Take Pride In Restoring The Historic Homes That Lend Character To The Area

The first night in their historic Corbin Park home, Charles and Janet Norby sat in the living room sipping champagne, wondering about the soft “ssssssssssss” sound that seemed to surround them.

Then they realized - it was the sound of decades-old plaster sifting through the walls.

Other neighbors tell of elegant moldings, fir beams and hardwood doors discovered under layers of white, lavender and avocado paint.

And then there’s the house with room numbers on each of its doors.

Restoring Corbin Park homes is labor of love, and a lifestyle.

“We’re in the 13th year of our four-year restoration plan,” Mac McCandless says with a laugh.

It also brings these neighbors together, creating a sense of community.

Corbin Park and the surrounding Emerson-Garfield area will be the first neighborhood featured in the Eastern Washington State Historical Society’s Old House Workshop series starting Feb. 11 at the Cheney Cowles Museum.

“This year we wanted to look at neighborhoods we haven’t looked at before,” says Marsha Rooney, history curator at the museum. “People might not realize this area has as many wonderful houses as it does.

“Part of what makes Spokane so wonderful is its solid, middle-class neighborhoods like this,” says Rooney.

The turn-of-the-century, bungalows, Victorians and Tudor-style homes stand like guardians of the past, surrounding the long oval park.

“If you stand in the middle of the park, you can see every home,” says McCandless.

The park is the centerpiece of the community, a reminder of the horse race track that was here 110 years ago, and a rallying point for the neighbors.

“Thousands of children have learned to ride their bikes here,” says Janet Norby.

When 100-year-old elms rimming the park fell victim to Dutch elm disease five years ago, neighbors scrambled first to try to save the trees, then to replace them.

Two dozen neighbors joined to replant trees. A picnic appeared spontaneously. Hard work took on a festive air.

There have been other battles, in the 1960s to prevent the city from replacing the vast assortment of flowers and shrubs with a play area, wading pool and sandbox. In the late 1970s, a plan to install log-style playground equipment sparked opposition from the Corbin Park Historical Society.

The equipment wasn’t the issue this time, but rather a sense from neighbors that they were excluded from a decision affecting their park.

Corbin Park is the only Spokane neighborhood to receive national, state and local historic district designations.

The local designation is the most stringent, prohibiting significant changes to the outside of homes and types of materials that can be used. The local designation is also the only one of the three that offers homeowners a break on property taxes. To qualify, the owner of a house listed on the Spokane Register of Historic Places must invest an amount equal to at least 25 percent of the assessed value of the home on approved restoration work.

Corbin Park residents aren’t preserving the mansions of the rich and famous, but rather, homes a little more familiar and attainable. Houses that belonged to lumbermen, dentists and business owners.

“The houses are good, but not the best example of historic housing, but it works because of the park,” said McCandless, campus architect for Gonzaga University.

“It’s important that we preserve the middle class,” says McCandless, looking around his own work-in-progress living room. “This room says things you can’t find in a book.”

On a recent Sunday morning, nine Corbin Park neighbors gathered in the McCandless living room to talk about their homes.

In the same casual way people in other neighborhoods share recipes, Corbin Park friends trade tales of a ceiling caving in during a project, an odd push-button in an upstairs bedroom that shut off the electricity downstairs; an antique clawfoot tub boxed in by a previous owner bent on modernizing the bathroom, a great wood-restoring product they just discovered.

“We have touched every single surface in our home and worked on everything,” said Norby.

“There is a sense of continuity to the past. We are the caretakers of these houses. We won’t be here forever,” says Tammy Arndt, co-owner of the Waverly Place Bed and Breakfast.

With every project, they discover links to the past: old postcards, newspapers, elixir bottles.

“You are connected to the house. My kids want to have this house someday,” says Ted Horobiowski, who grew up in the neighborhood.

Most of the homes, many nearly 100 years old, have only known two or three owners.

The Norbys bought their 1902 Tudor-style home from Theadora (Teddie) Budwin-Frisbie, who grew up in the house, one of the oldest in the neighborhood.

She gave the Norbys pictures, showing her as a child in front of the house. Skinny trees - birch, spruce, chestnut - surround her. Behind her in the picture, most of the block is still unbuilt.

When the Norbys bought the house, the spruce was 110 feet tall and filled the yard.

Theadora’s father owned the Parisian Dress Shop in the 1890s. Theadora graduated from North Central High School and Washington State University, and taught in District 81 for 35 years, retiring from the Rogers High School English department.

Even a house with one owner shows its age, and not always gracefully.

When the Norbys bought the house in 1978, the wood floors had been stained nearly black and scarred by heavy furniture. The kitchen was painted peacock blue, fir woodwork was dry and cracked.

A simple roof repair revealed five previous roofs underneath. Cracks in the walls had been repaired with dental plaster, wiring strung together with adhesive tape, there were no lights over 25 watts.

“All we could see was the potential,” says Janet Norby. ‘Sometimes you just have to laugh, it’s a little hysterical, but you laugh.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: OLD HOUSE WORKSHOPS Historic Corbin Park and the surrounding Emerson-Garfield area will be the first neighborhood featured in the annual Old House Workshop series this month. Date: Tuesday, Feb. 11 Time: Registration 6:30-7 p.m.; program 7-9 p.m. Place: Cheney Cowles Museum, 2316 W. First. Tickets: $8 for a single workshop, or $21 for the series of three workshops. Other Workshops: Feb. 18, East Central neighborhood; Feb. 25, Peaceful Valley neighborhood. (All workshops are held at the museum.) Information: 456-3931, ext. 101.