Governor mansion halfway to funding goal
BOISE – Private cash pledges to renovate the new Idaho governor’s mansion are halfway to a goal of $3 million, one of the effort’s leaders said Monday, adding that he hopes to have the rest of commitments by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, gubernatorial candidates U.S. Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, R-Idaho, and Democrat Jerry Brady, are sticking to pledges of their own: Both say they won’t live in the mansion, should they win in November.
So far, $422,000 in cash is in a fund, and another $1.1 million has been pledged for work on the 35-acre site in the northern Boise foothills, said Bill Glynn, president of Intermountain Gas Co.
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne hailed the December 2004 donation of the property by J.R. Simplot, the state’s richest man with reported family wealth of $3.2 billion, as a generous gift to give Idaho’s top executive a place to hang his or her hat in a state that’s not had an official residence in nearly 20 years. Though legislative leaders acknowledge that construction is behind Kempthorne’s original plan of being completed by December, Glynn said it’s not uncommon for ambitious drives like this to take time.
“I always like to be done yesterday on anything we do,” Glynn said. “By my own standards, I wish we were done now. But I’ve been involved in enough campaigns to know that raising $3 million takes a fair amount of time.”
The current tally is about $500,000 more than organizers had in April.
It includes a $500,000 pledge from billionaire timber man Tim Blixseth, who owns forest land north of Boise, and $100,000 from Coeur d’Alene businessman Duane Hagadone.
No construction will begin before all the money is in the bank, said lawmakers on the five-member Governor’s Housing Committee that oversees the project. It calls for expanding the $2.1 million, 7,400-square-foot house to 12,000 square feet, as well as adding a covered entranceway big enough to shelter a car for gala events.
“One of the things the legislative committee has made quite clear, we will not go forward until the money is raised,” said Rep. Anne Pasley-Stuart, D-Boise. “If we have to scale back the plans, we’ll be happy to do that.”
Just how the mansion is to be used once the money has been raised remains unclear.
Democrat Brady has said the home should be turned into a public site, not a residence. Brady already has homes in Boise and Idaho Falls, where his family runs the newspaper.
“It’s too gaudy for a governor,” Brady said. “But it’s a place that we should protect and keep for a public purpose. What would that public purpose be? I’d look to get a lot of input. It could be a historic site, honoring Simplot and what he’s meant to the state. Or it could be a public park.”
Otter, Brady’s GOP rival, said he won’t sleep in the house built by his former father-in-law a quarter-century ago. Otter was divorced from Gay Simplot, the potato magnate’s daughter, in 1992. He’ll remain at his ranch in Star, near Boise, he said, adding he fears the mansion will end up costing Idaho money.
“That’s a very generous donation by the family,” Otter, who remarried Aug. 18, told the Associated Press. But “I am concerned that unless we are successful in getting the private sector that’s been called upon to generate private funds … the state will have to step forward and pick up the slack.”
The renovation plans include as many as five guest bedrooms, plus garages, a game room, a grand hall with 12-foot ceilings and dining space for 150 people.
Glynn said he hadn’t heard of any reluctance among donors because neither Brady nor Otter would live in the house.
“Not one word of that has been said to me, or gotten back to me,” he said.
Idaho, which sold its last governor’s residence in 1990 after it became dilapidated and past governors refused to live in it, took ownership of the Simplot mansion last November. It costs more than $3,800 monthly to maintain, including irrigation of the vast lawn. That’ll rise to $5,400 once residents move in, the state has said.
The money will come from the same $1.5 million fund that currently provides outgoing Gov. Jim Risch with a $4,500 monthly housing allowance.
Even if nobody moves in, a renovated mansion could still be used to host dignitaries and other large groups, as well as for fundraising events, other mansion proponents say. Simplot’s donation is still the cheapest long-term solution to the issue of providing a suitable executive residence, said Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, chairman of the Governor’s Housing Committee.
“It’s still going to be a great place to entertain,” Little said. “Nobody says you have to live there. Both candidates right now already have residences in Ada County. But one of the points of the governor’s house is, if someone gets elected from out of the valley, they might need a place to stay.”