The Gus & Florence Ehrenberg House was built
in 1911 in the Ehrenberg Subdivision, which is part of the
Altamont Addition in East Central Spokane. Well-preserved, the
home is in excellent condition and is a hallmark example of the
Craftsman style applied to a single-family residence. Prominent
Craftsman-style architectural elements include the home’s
side-gable form; low-pitched roof; widely overhanging eaves with
exposed rafter tails; deep bargeboards with cut-out ends;
covered full-width front porch with thick square tapered porch
supports; clapboard-wood shingle-stucco cladding/siding; and
original multi-paned windows. Artfully articulated, some of the
windows have thick
beveled-glass lights that are divided by lead strips which form
multi-faceted geometric diamond-shaped patterns. The home’s
original design, horizontal emphasis, and natural building
materials (stucco, clinker brick, wood, metal), all work
together to form the handcrafted “back to nature” aesthetic
which is synonymous with the Craftsman tradition. The home was
built for Gus & Florence Ehrenberg and their family who made the
property their home for more than 60 years. A Spokane hotelier,
Gus Ehrenberg was a manager of the Palmerston Hotel Company, a
proprietor of the Palmerston Hotel in downtown Spokane, and was
invested in area mining operations. Florence Ehrenberg gained
notoriety as an accomplished “piano teacher” and “pianist and
composer” and was praised in Spokane newspaper articles and the
March 1931 edition of Better Homes & Gardens Magazine for
her talent as an amateur gardener and winner of numerous local,
state, and national garden contests during the 1920s and 1930s.
The Ehrenberg property was locally praised and “selected as the
representative of the Spokane community in…national yard and
garden contests” and contributed to “a marked improvement in
city beautification” in which “Spokane…won and…maintained an
enviable reputation as “the city beautiful.”
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beveled-glass lights that are divided by lead strips which form
multi-faceted geometric diamond-shaped patterns. The home’s
original design, horizontal emphasis, and natural building
materials (stucco, clinker brick, wood, metal), all work
together to form the handcrafted “back to nature” aesthetic
which is synonymous with the Craftsman tradition. The home was
built for Gus & Florence Ehrenberg and their family who made the
property their home for more than 60 years. A Spokane hotelier,
Gus Ehrenberg was a manager of the Palmerston Hotel Company, a
proprietor of the Palmerston Hotel in downtown Spokane, and was
invested in area mining operations. Florence Ehrenberg gained
notoriety as an accomplished “piano teacher” and “pianist and
composer” and was praised in Spokane newspaper articles and the
March 1931 edition of Better Homes & Gardens Magazine for
her talent as an amateur gardener and winner of numerous local,
state, and national garden contests during the 1920s and 1930s.
The Ehrenberg property was locally praised and “selected as the
representative of the Spokane community in…national yard and
garden contests” and contributed to “a marked improvement in
city beautification” in which “Spokane…won and…maintained an
enviable reputation as “the city beautiful.”