House’s walls hold simple treasures

When Fred and Laurie Taylor tore into their 1895 Queen Anne home on Spokane’s South Side, they never imagined its hiding places would give up some very personal information.

The Taylors, who started work on the house at 1115 W. 10th Ave. in 2005, found a series of small treasures hiding under loose floor planks in the third-story attic.

Among them were a series of love letters from a University of Idaho fraternity member to the daughter of one of the earliest owners of the house.

In a postcard to Muriel Leigh dated Aug. 6, 1914, the young man named Rollin expressed a passion that spans the ages: “Oh! My darling. I can scarcely wait your return to my arms.”

Muriel Leigh’s parents, Walter and Anna Leigh, had bought the home from Gustaf and Anna Renstrom for $3,000 in 1899. The family lived there until 1920.

Walter Leigh was a prominent attorney and successful real estate businessman. The couple had six children. Muriel Leigh, who also attended UI, went on to become a schoolteacher in St. Paul and died in Spokane in 1963.

In addition to yielding love letters, the house also had blank stock certificates, canceled checks written to the Bank of Spokane Falls and a home ledger showing that a ton of coal cost $13.

Apparently, one of the family members delivered the former Spokane Chronicle newspaper. Weekly handwritten invoices for the newspapers were among the old items found.

In addition, the Taylors found two left-footed children’s boots, a small hatchet, pills and old magazines.

“You can feel the people who were here,” said Laurie Taylor. “You can feel their presence.”

The find was good enough to persuade producers of the HGTV cable network show “If Walls Could Talk” to tape a segment on the Taylors and the history of the Renstrom-Taylor House. The segment is expected to air this fall, said Laurie Brian, producer with High Noon Entertainment of Denver.

“That house is just gorgeous,” Brian said, complimenting the Taylors on their restoration of the home. “They really took a lot of pains to restore it.”

Formerly of Seattle, the Taylors said they searched the western United States for a nice city and historic home in which to live.

“Spokane was like this small community – at the same time, there were a few things going on, but what sold me was the architecture,” Laurie Taylor said.

They bought the home after spotting it on a real estate Web site. Initially, Fred Taylor said he was reluctant to buy the home because he could see it needed a lot of work.

Laurie Taylor said she told him the problems were just cosmetic. “He was right, none of it was cosmetic,” she admitted.

The list of improvements is long. The Taylors removed concrete shingles to expose the clapboard siding. A diamond-shaped pattern emerged from the upper gables. A front bay was rebuilt.

Interior walls were removed because the house had been converted to a duplex. Woodwork was replicated and restored inside and out, including trim boards.

“We had to replace all of those,” Fred Taylor said.

The house has new plumbing, a new kitchen, new interior decoration and a new etched glass panel in the front door, among other things.

Their $120,000 investment in improvements nearly matched the purchase price of $140,000, the Taylors said.

Earlier this month, the Spokane City Council approved the Renstrom-Leigh House to the Spokane Register of Historic Places, a designation that provides a 10-year property tax exemption for qualified restoration costs.

According to the historic nomination by consultant Linda Yeomans, the Queen Anne Victorian house shows elements of Free Classic and Spindlework architecture. An unusual feature is a diagonal box bay on the second floor above a wraparound porch.

“This design feature is unique to the Renstrom-Leigh House and has not been found on any other house in the surrounding neighborhood,” Yeomans said in the nomination.