Pair Honored For Work Preserving Bungalow Historical Society Panel Honors Bob And Pat Coe

Bob and Pat Coe spent the first five years of their retirement traveling the country to see the sights.

Among their favorite places were the historic neighborhoods of America.

They developed a fondness for homes built during the Arts and Crafts Movement that began in this country in the late 1800s and continued to about 1925.

Three years ago, the Coes settled in Spokane and bought a 1921 Arts and Crafts bungalow, which they restored.

On Tuesday, they were recognized for their work by the Historic Preservation Committee of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society.

The Coes were named as the winners of the 1998 historic preservation award for residential buildings and received the award at the annual Old House Workshop sponsored by the society.

“We just wanted to do the right thing by an old house,” Pat Coe said.

She calls it recycling of the best kind.

The Coes are retired telephone company workers. They spent more than $50,000 improving a house that originally was built for $6,000.

They redid the oak floors, plaster walls, fireplace, kitchen and basement. They added boxed beams to the living room and attached a deck and pergola on the rear of the house. They built a garden. They fixed things the right way.

They modified the layout of the dining room and added a built-in china cabinet, something that was left out of the original construction but is common in Arts and Crafts homes.

The details such as the fireplace tile, kitchen cabinets and light fixtures were selected from faithful reproductions for the period.

“We were always in dirty clothes,” Coe said.

Then, in a twist of circumstance, the Coes found another home they liked even better, and they moved.

They sold the 1,400 square-foot bungalow for the amount of money they put into it, Pat Coe said.

“There’s a market for these houses after they are restored,” she said.

The new owners, Richard and Mary Welsh, said they were thrilled to find a home with so much character that had been restored with updated features like the new kitchen and deck.

“Homes like this always have so much more charm,” said Richard Welsh.

Redoing an old home is a challenge even for the most patient do-it-yourselfers.

When the Coes began their restoration, they discovered five layers of wallpaper covering the cracked lath-and-plaster walls.

They cleaned off the old wallpaper, and then hired a craftsman to repair the cracks with a skim coat of fresh plaster.

A lot of people trying to renovate older houses will tear out damaged plaster walls and replace them with modern gypsum board, commonly known as Sheetrock.

The Coes said they never considered modern wallboard because the old walls have a handmade look that’s pleasing to the eye.

They painted the walls an earthy yellow and added stenciled authentic Arts and Crafts patterns for a top border.

During the three-year restoration, the Coes hired some of the most accomplished workers in the city to do jobs like plastering, woodworking and flooring.

Pat Coe said much of the restoration was based on her detailed research of Arts and Crafts. The movement stemmed from a disdain for industrialization, crowded cities and poor working conditions.

Arts and Crafts embraced holistic values such as simplicity in design, use of native building materials and the creation of a nurturing home environment. Features ranging from big fireplaces to artistic electrical lighting were employed to elevate the human spirit.

In their research, the Coes discovered their bungalow at 26th and Division was built from a design marketed by Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Mich.

It was common during the period for homes to come from kits supplied by companies like Aladdin or Sears Roebuck.

Architectural plans promoted by Gustav Stickley in his Craftsman magazine helped popularize the style at the turn of the century. Stickley’s influence was so great that the term Craftsman bungalow has become synonymous with smaller Arts and Crafts homes built for the expanding middle class of the period.

Because Spokane underwent a population boom during the early 1900s, there are many homes in older neighborhoods that were built from kits or patterned plans.

The Coes have a virtual library of books on the Arts and Crafts era. A photograph of their restored kitchen was published in a book called “Inside the Bungalow.”

The Coes subscribe to the American Bungalow magazine and even had the home registered with the publication.

Pat Coe said Spokane is blessed with a large assortment of well-built historic homes done in a variety of architectural styles, including variations of the Arts and Crafts theme.

“Spokane has one of the largest and most beautiful assortments of old houses of any city in the country,” she said.

In other cities, historic neighborhoods are promoted as tourist attractions, but Spokane seems to take its residential treasures for granted, the Coes said.

“What we need to do is let people know what we have here in the way of historic houses,” Pat Coe said.