2627 W. Gardner

Statement of Significance

Built in 1903, the Gilbert & Annie Chamberlin House is an excellent representation of the Free Classic Queen Anne style.  Queen Anne-style features are displayed in the home’s pitched roof, multiple cross gables, beveled and boxed bays, corner boards and sunburst designs, a prominent facade gable, recessed balcony, and a full-width front porch.  Free Classic-style details are depicted in Classic cornice returns, dentiled cornice courses, narrow-width horizontal clapboard siding, and round fluted porch columns with Ionic capitals. The house was constructed by the Chamberlin Real Estate & Improvement Company for Annie Wickersham Chamberlin and her husband, Gilbert Lewis Chamberlin, the founder and president of the company.  The home was custom-designed for the Chamberlins by William J. Ballard, a Pasadena architect employed by the Chamberlin Company, and was prominently featured in the April 1907 edition of Spokane’s Home Builders, a promotional plan book published by the company.  The plan book included floor plans of the property, a description of the home’s design, and photographs. The photos pictured a view of the exterior and four vignettes of the interior and its furnishings.  Like the Gilbert & Annie Chamberlin House, “Chamberlin-built homes” were advertised in the plan book as being “built on honor,” each house “well-constructed in every way” where “nothing but the very best of materials were used in its construction.” Chamberlin’s impact on Spokane was great and in 1912, he was praised for his “remarkable record of having built several hundred homes” in the city.  He was described as one of the “most progressive residents of this city,” where “his labors” constituted “an effective and valuable force in the improvement, development, and adornment of Spokane.”

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