Historic Register Tour

HISTORIC NAME	Elks Club
COMMON NAME	North Coast Life Insurance Company
DATE BUILT	1919-1921
ARCHITECT/BUILDER	Edward J. Baume and Kirtland K. Cutter
PROPERTY STYLE	Second Rennaissance Revival
ON THE SPOKANE REGISTER	Yes - added 5/1/89
NATIONAL REGISTER	No
IN A DISTRICT	Yes - District
DISTRICT	Riverside Avenue Historic District
NEIGHBORHOOD	Riverside

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

The Elk’s Temple lies in the heart of the Riverside Avenue Historic District, along a serpentine section of Riverside Avenue designed in accordance with the recommendations submitted to the Board of Park Commissioners by the nationally renowned Olmstead Brothers Landscape Architects, of Brookline, Massachusetts, during the height of the City Beautiful movement. The Elks were the most popular organization in the city at the time of the building’s construction, between 1919 and 1921, when this lodge boasted membership second only to Los Angeles on the west coast. The building’s ornate but dignified exterior, designed by Spokane’s most celebrated architect Kirtland K. Cutter in partnership with Edward J. Baume, is in the Second Renaissance Revival style. The property is now owned by the North Coast life Insurance company, which won an Award of Outstanding Merit from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation for its certified rehabilitation of the building in 1983.