Love House captures Craftsman appeal

The Love House, a quintessential Craftsman bungalow on the South Hill, seems to rise from the earth.

Two of the clinker-brick porch piers are mounted on native basalt rock and frame the tiled front porch.

“This house is supposed to look like it is erupting out of the ground,” said Linda Yeomans, a historic preservation consultant who wrote a nomination to place the house on the Spokane Register of Historic Places.

“It’s an organic expression,” she said of the house at 436 W. 24th Ave., that adheres faithfully to the Craftsman bungalow style of the early 20th century.

The Craftsman style revered nature as a rejection of the fussiness of Victorian sensibilities. Victorian architecture emphasized verticality rather than the horizontality of Craftsman construction.

“It makes the home look like it is a part of nature … the mantra of the whole Craftsman style,” Yeomans said.

Last month, the Spokane City-County Historic Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to recommend the house for the register because of its adherence to the Craftsman ethic. The listing is pending before the City Council.

The owners are Doug and Janet Lambarth.

“It’s welcoming, and it’s warm to come into,” Janet Lambarth said. “It’s the way the architect did it.”

“I like the flow in this house … I feel free,” she said.

The front door, which has an unusual orientation toward the driveway side of the house, opens into a living room. An inglenook – a seating area near a fireplace – and dining room are made rich with naturally finished oak and red fir above the oak floor.

Leaded glass doors in the bookshelves and built-in china cabinet give a sense of elegance.

“The Craftsman tradition’s ‘back-to-nature’ organic expression is particularly achieved in the home’s wood shingles, painted wood trim, and a prominent use of rough-textured clinker brick and basalt rock features,” the nomination by Yeomans said. “The interior of the Love House is articulated with quartersawn ‘tiger-striped’ oak woodwork finished and burnished to a deep, rich ebony patina.”

The Craftsman movement originally took root in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California, and spread up and down the Pacific Coast.

The Love House in the Cannon Hill Park Addition was conceived by building contractor Harry H. Brokaw and sold to Henry H. and Francis Hite Love in 1912. The architect is not known.

Henry Love worked in real estate and in lending.

The house came with covenants that are still in force today. All of the homes in the area are set back 25 to 30 feet from the street; they all face the street; no apartments or commercial uses are allowed; original construction had to be at least $3,000; and two coats of paint or stain were required on the exteriors.

Lambarth said the home originally cost $4,000.

As part of the nomination for the historic register, the owners signed a management agreement pledging not to change the outer facade and major woodwork features on the interior – the fireplace, bookcases, china cabinet, living room and dining room. Under the agreement, those features cannot be changed by future owners.

Lambarth said she looked at more than 30 houses until her husband narrowed the choice to three. From those, she opted for the Love House.

The Lambarths have done a lot of work, adding enclosed porch spaces, finishing the basement, updating the hot-water heating system and radiators, fixing shingle siding, redoing the roof and repairing the original oak floors.

The house has about 2,200 square feet of living space on the main floor along with the basement and an upstairs bedroom.

“It’s a great property,” Yeomans told the landmarks commissioners last month.