Historic Register Tour - Moldenhauer House

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Built by George Baker for Francis J. Engel in 1918, the Moldenhauer House is architecturally significant as a fine representative example of an Arts and Crafts style bungalow. The home is especially significant, however, for its association with musicologist Hans Moldenhauer. Moldenhauer fled Nazi Germany for New York with his Jewish wife Margot Kuhn. He moved to Spokane after a visit in 1939, and, after serving as a ski troop instructor at Camp Hale in Colorado became the first student to attend Whitworth College under the GI Bill. Having divorced, he married Rosaleem Jackman, a former student and Red Cross nurse at Camp Hale. Together they founded the Spokane Conservatory of Music in their home at 808 S. Lincoln, where they amassed a world-renowned collection of musical documents. The Moldenhauer Archives, embodying a collection of 100,000 music manuscripts, letters, and documents, with divisions at Harvard University, the Library of Congress, Northwestern University, Washington State Univesity, and Whitworth College in the United States, and the Bavarian State Library, Paul Sacher Foundation, Vienna City Library, and the Zurich Central Library in Europe, includes the works of the world’s greatest composers. Professor Sydney Verba of the Harvard Library characterized the collection as “the largest and finest private collection of musical manuscripts in the world.” Moldenhauer published several well received books, some co-authored with Rosaleen, and they received numerous prestigious awards. For his works on the life and music of Austrian composer Anton von Webern, a special interest of Moldenhauer, the President of Austria awarded him the nation’s highest civilian decoration, the Austrian Cross of Honor (First Class) for Science and Art. He was also honored with the Golden Order of Merit of the City of Vienna, and the Order of Merit (First Class) of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1984, in recognition of his archival achievement, Hans was made Harvard University’s Honorary Curator of 20^th Century Music. In addition to his impressive musical achievements, Moldenhauer was an avid mountain climber who conquered most of Europe’s major peaks, including the Matterhorn, Monte Blanc, Monte Rosa, and Marinnelly Couloir, one of the greatest ice climbs in the Alps, and several in the United States, including Mt. St. Helen’s and Mexico’s 17,888 Popocatepetl.