Edwin Robertson Coulter came to Weiser from Mayfield, Kentucky, where he was raised, after passing the bar to practice law. He had contracted yellow fever while serving in the Spanish-American War, and after reading a brochure about the healthful climate of the Weiser River Valley, he decided to move here in 1902.
A year or two later, he met Lucina Alice Williams at the Hotel Meadows in Meadows, Idaho, where he was staying while meeting a client. Lucy had been invited west by her sister, Oriana — the eldest of five Williams sisters — who had married Frank Hubbard, owner of the Hotel Meadows.
During a visit home to Peckville, Pennsylvania, Oriana had tried to convince her family to join her in Idaho. Lucy was the only one who took her up on the offer to “see the West.”
That following winter, Lucy lived in Boise in a boarding house on Hayes Street and worked as a schoolteacher. On June 5, 1906, she and Ed were married in Boise, and Lucy moved with her new husband to Weiser.
They first lived in the Uhr Building on West Main (though I’ve never heard of that), then rented a house at 125 E. Galloway. In 1908, they welcomed their first child, a son named Gus Givens — after Ed’s oldest brother.
Soon after, Ed bought land and arranged to have a house built. The Coulter House at 729 West Third was completed in July 1909, just in time for the birth of their second child — and first daughter — Elizabeth.
One story about the house: It was designed without a fireplace, which was unusual at the time. Apparently, money was tight, and Ed, refusing to mortgage the home, gave Lucy a choice — a fireplace or a stained-glass window. Lucy reportedly replied, “I’ve started enough fires to last me the rest of my life. I want the window.” And so, the stained-glass window won.
Despite the lack of a fireplace, the house was warm and cozy with radiators throughout the main floor, and in the upstairs master bedroom and bath. The sleeping porch — where both Elizabeth and her sister Emily were born — was heated by a wood stove. Later, when the kitchen’s cook stove was replaced with an electric one, the chimney that served both stoves was removed, and the screened porch was fitted with glass windows.
Designed by architect H.W. Bond and built for $3,250, the house included two large pocket doors that could close off the front room, and several built-ins: glass-fronted cabinets in the dining room, hall, master bedroom, and library, with closets tucked under stairs and into eaves.
The original blueprints — still in the house — show a large dining room on the north side with a bay window and a serve-through cabinet to the pantry. By the time I spent summers there, that room had become the den, outfitted with built-in bookcases. The smaller room on the south side served as the dining room, with cabinets for dishes and linens. The pantry had likely been converted into a half-bath.
My guess is that the original den was too small and too much of a hallway — a straight shot from the front door to the kitchen. By the time my mother, my brother Eddie (Edwin Coulter), and I lived there during high school, the den was the main family living space, and the front room was for guests.
The upstairs, dining room, and kitchen have always had painted Craftsman-style fir woodwork — but the front room, foyer, hall, and library still have their beautiful original finish. In the 1960s, one of Elizabeth’s friends told her she “needed to paint all the woodwork white and get rid of all that dark wood because it was all wrong.” Thankfully, Elizabeth smiled and ignored her.
The Coulters also had a large garden on the same block, a clay tennis court (we still have the heavy roller and the lime roller for the lines), and a horse pasture at the end of West Third. They owned a cabin on Fourth of July Creek, where the kids would ride on horseback while Ed and Lucy followed by car. Every summer, the family also spent a week or two in a cottage on the boardwalk in Seaside, Oregon — traveling there by train.
When my brother Eddie and I spent summers at the house, we played in the old concrete pool — repaired by Elizabeth and filled each year. We were told it had been built in the hole left by a windstorm that took down a cherry tree.
We also spent hours lying in striped hammocks after our frequent library trips, reading Oz books or playing “Bomba the Jungle Boy” (and his little sister) in the old pecan tree by the shop. We played around the old root cellar too — now long gone — which sat in the backyard and was once filled with fruits and vegetables my grandmother canned at the old cannery near the Institute.
This house was — and still is — a magical place to spend time in.
I’m grateful it’s stayed so close to the original.
By Contributing Author Dennis Cooper
September 12, 2022