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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Landmarks: Binkley House a reminder of unheralded Spokane pioneer

John W. Binkley could well be the least known of Spokane’s pioneers – surprising, considering all he accomplished in the region’s early days.

He not only accomplished a great deal, but he intersected with many whose names are better known throughout the city. The home he erected in 1889 at 628 S. Maple St. stands as just one of the landmarks of his largely unheralded legacy, and it gives a peak into the nature and style of the man who built it.

Binkley built his lower South Hill home as his main dwelling using the late Victorian style, displaying many features of the Queen Anne style, though the frame structure lacks much of the ornamentation common to Queen Anne architecture. The house’s irregular shape features square bays, cantilevered wall extensions and overhanging facades and has several remaining old walnut trees in the yard.

It now houses offices of three practicing psychologists and one social worker on the main floor and contains three rental apartments on the second floor. Living farther up the South Hill, current owner Stephanie Kuffel said she and her husband, Rob, saw a for-sale sign on it in 2014, and they bought it for both an investment and as a location for her practice.

It had previously been owned by Shannon Gates-Thomsen and George Thomsen. The couple bought it from Shannon’s father, attorney Kenneth Gates, who had his law offices there. It was Gates who remodeled the main floor in the early 1980s, converting it to office space and providing a door from the isolated library at the back of the house into the main house. Though she was a child at the time, Gates-Thomsen recalls the surprises they found as renovation proceeded, such as discovering pocket doors in walls that had been covered over. Much of the original interior craftsmanship was retained.

One of the features of the building that appealed to all the recent owners is the tall ornate fireplace in what had been the library. It is inset and features carved wood, terra cotta carving, recessed lighting and ornate tile which Gates-Thomsen said was imported from Italy by the original owner.

She recalls hearing a story from her father about how Binkley, who was an attorney and served as a probate judge, used his library as his legal chambers. Apparently his chambers were not allowed to be accessible to his living quarters, she said, so when the house was built, a separate entrance to that room was built, and the room was sealed off from the rest of the house. “The judge would go out the front door of the house, walk around to the back and enter his chambers from there,” she said.

Kuffel says one of the most intriguing features of the house is the Harry Potter cupboard under the staircase to the second floor. A short door and its location – reminiscent of the hero’s bedroom in the J.K. Rowling books – gives entry into a small storage closet in the house.

John W. and Josephine Binkley built the large house for themselves a few years after moving to Spokane from Seattle. Coming originally from Ontario, he had earned his law degree from Toronto University and moved to Western Washington. Upon moving to Spokane, he formed a law firm with his cousin Jacob Taylor specializing in commercial and financial law, later concentrating on banking interests. The partners founded Northwestern and Pacific Mortgage Co. in 1886, which merged with Hypotheekbank of Holland in 1896, with Binkley overseeing legal matters.

At the turn of the century the two partners founded North Pacific Loan and Trust Co. and loaned a great deal of money for development of commercial and farming interests throughout the region.

Hypotheekbank along with Binkley and Taylor are recognized in several historic accounts as having had a major role in fueling the city’s most prolific building boom from 1900 to 1910.

In addition, Binkley and Taylor were significant in helping establish Fort George Wright military post by personally donating $8,000 worth of land in 1896 toward the eventual construction of the post along the Spokane River the next year. In addition he was one of the prime organizers and president of the first and second Spokane Industrial Expositions (known as fruit fairs in those days), which were precursors of today’s Spokane Interstate Fair.

Of the many buildings built and owned by Binkley, the most well-known is no doubt the Montvale Block in downtown Spokane, which he constructed in 1899, offering single-occupancy rooms for 60 individuals, most of whom were members of the growing working class drawn to Spokane’s building renaissance. There were also six street-level commercial bays, one of which was occupied by Kilmer and Sons Hardware, which at one time employed a young man named Henry J. Kaiser, who went on to become one of America’s greatest industrialists and the father of modern American shipbuilding.

And there are still more connections to significant contributors in Spokane’s development. Binkley named the Montvale Block after his country estate on the Little Spokane River, Montvale Farm, where he entertained such notables as Royal Riblet, Louis Davenport and John Finch. In 1928, he gave the farm to his only child Ethelyn and her husband, Aubrey L. White, who, among many other accomplishments, brought the famed Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects of Massachusetts to Spokane to plan parks and pathways for the region.

In addition to being one of the prime movers in Spokane’s early development, Binkley built solid structures that stood the test of time. Montvale Farm is on the Spokane Register of Historic Places. The Montvale Block and Binkley House are on both the Spokane register and National Register of Historic Places.

For the Binkley House’s current owner, Kuffel, it wasn’t just the fact that it was a historic property that appealed to her. She drove by it every day on the way home from work and admits she just began “a love affair with the house, which reminded me so much of the house I grew up in in Montana.” Even though she and her husband weren’t quite ready to buy when it came on the market, “how could we resist? We just made it happen.”