Spokane’s Campbell House receives historic $1 million donation in advance of 100th anniversary celebration

An anonymous donor has given $1 million to the Campbell House, one of Spokane’s historic jewels in Browne’s Addition that is under the care of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

It’s the largest single gift that has ever been made to the home, said Wes Jessup, the museum’s executive director.

The donation comes right before the 15th annual Holiday at the Campbell House event, where visitors are invited to step into the home and experience what it may have been like in 1910. Actors and actresses portray members of the Campbell family, including patriarch Amasa and his daughter Helen Campbell, house cook Hulda Olsen and several other servants who may have lived in the home in the early 1900s.

“We celebrate the Campbell House during Christmas just because it is a throwback to an earlier era,” Jessup said. “The design of the home, the decoration, the scheme of the home, lends itself to holiday decorations and traditional holiday themes.”

The million-dollar contribution will go to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture Foundation, which intends to create a curator position for several years. Hiring for the position will likely begin in January, Jessup said. The position will help the MAC be able to reach more people in the community, offer more programs and take care of the Campbell House, Jessup said.

“It’s incredible when donors step up and make that kind of financial commitment to the organization. It’s rare,” Jessup said.

Thousands of people come by the Campbell House during Christmas, said Linda Strong, the museum’s manager of interpretation.

The home will be open for visitors during the holidays from 12-4 p.m. on Dec. 18-21. Guests can enjoy Olsen’s sugar cookies, tour the home and participate in a family-friendly scavenger hunt. Entry will be staggered to every 15 minutes. Tickets are $17. Admission is free for MAC members. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the MAC or by calling at 509-456-3931.

The Campbell House has three floors and 13,000 square feet. It was built in 1898 and designed by famed architect Kirtland Cutter. The Campbells, who lived there for over 20 years, employed five full-time staff including a cook, coachman, gardener and two maids.

The home was donated to the museum in 1924 by the Campbells’ only child, Helen. The museum was originally called the Grace-Campbell Memorial Museum, Strong said.

The walls inside the home are plastered with different wallpaper in every room, featuring botanical patterns, golden yellows and royal reds that are reflected by the red rugs that cover creaky wooden floorboards.

Many of the windows and furniture are original to the home, including nearly every piece that sits in the guest bedroom. The four-poster bed in the room is where Helen gave birth to her firstborn son, while her husband, William W. Powell, was away during World War I, Strong said. Every room in the home, whether the pieces in it are original or not, is staged based on pictures and journals from the Campbells. And, hanging by the stairs are three paintings of Amasa, Grace and Helen, which were done while the Campbells lived in their Spokane home.

“It’s Washington state’s best-preserved historic house that’s open to the public,” Jessup said.

The home originally opened in 1925 as an art museum, according to several articles written in The Spokesman-Review that year. But as the year passed, it was changed from an art museum to a combined arts and culture museum that was reopened in 1926. Next year, the museum will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

“The home encapsulates an era of Spokane and a moment in history where Spokane was seeing an incredible level of growth,” Jessup said. “A lot of the people that were moving here, they recognized the city as a very special place, and this is where they were kind of setting up shop for their families and their homes.”

The home was originally restored in the 1960s, but was restored again in 2001.

Rebecca Cook has worked as an actress at the Campbell House for 15 years playing Olsen, the house cook. Olsen served the Campbell family for four years and is one of the most well-documented family servants who lived with the family. Olsen immigrated to Spokane from Sweden.

Cook said she keeps coming back to play the family cook because of her love for Olsen and desire to showcase local history.

“You get to see history in a whole different way,” Cook said, smiling.