REBUILDING HISTORY AFTER 2 YEARS OF PAINSTAKING RESTORATION,

Aubrey White, the father of Spokane parks, slept here. So did Jay P. Graves, who helped establish Whitworth College.

Now, for $900 a month, so can you.

Almost two years after fire ruined the Kirtland Cutter mansion in Browne's Addition, the Aubrey White Apartments are again for rent.

Experts surveying the damage at First and Hemlock in 1994 advised owners: Pave it. Put up a 30-unit building.

Instead, the owner's son and his youthful contractors did something White and Graves may have understood. They rebuilt it for future generations.

Even after the owner, Ruth Briscoe, died. Even after the money ran out.

"From day one our intent was to rebuild. I shared my mother's feelings about it and after her death, I wanted to finish the work," said Eric Bradley.

"A lot of people had no hope," said construction foreman Joe Welk. "But it's like looking at blueprints. Some people can only see lines. We could see beyond; we could see the whole picture."

It was 90 degrees when a spark from a roofer's torch reportedly started a fire in the apartments on July 28, 1994.

Flames that Bradley said "ran like liquid" spread into the space between the interior and exterior walls. The roof collapsed, along with the third floor. Eight of the 57 firefighters on the scene were injured. Only two of three chimneys were left standing. Every plaster wall was mush.

Gregg Morin, 31, president of S.G. Morin and Son, agreed to rebuild it. The firm, one of Spokane's oldest general contractors, had moved North Idaho's historic Wallace Depot three blocks to make room for I-90 and had worked on the restored Campbell House next to the Cheney Cowles Museum.

Morin took Welk to the site.

"I didn't have to walk inside before I said yes," said Welk, 32. "It was the chance of a lifetime."

"Well, kid," Morin's father said, "I hope you know what you're getting into."

Since work didn't begin until four months after the fire, the house was like an open-air bucket, freezing and full of water.

It took seven men working 14 hours a day nearly 12 days just to remove the debris. A dozen men quit.

"It was just too dirty, too disgusting," said Welk. Soot on his work clothes ruined three sets of seat covers in a new truck.

With no blueprints to work from, the Morins videotaped and photographed every step of the demolition so they could reconstruct what had been.

Designed by the architect who built The Spokane Club and Patsy Clark's Mansion, the Colonial revival was a key Cutter creation. Built circa 1900 for real estate tycoon Graves, it was sold to White in 1911 and converted to apartments around World War II.

Ruth Briscoe bought it in 1968 and had just refinanced to put on a new roof when the fire occurred.

The home is in the National Register Historic District in Browne's Addition. But limited by insurance money, Bradley could not replicate some of the original features.

Rounded windows on the third floor were replaced with peaked dormers. One of the two 8-foot-high French doors was replaced by a modern single door. The balcony rail is taller and narrower than the original.

But historians were grateful the shell and ambiance of the neighborhood were preserved amid financial pressure.

"They've made a heroic effort," said Marsha Rooney, curator of history at Cheney Cowles Museum. "I really credit the homeowner with making that kind of a commitment to the community."

The crew started by throwing out their levels.

The manse was six inches wider in the back than the front. Nothing was plumb. Beams hand-milled at the site during construction had to be replaced by modern I-beams.

But construction workers were awed by the original craftsmen who'd worked with hand tools.

Welk would sketch ideas on how to rebuild and meet current codes at home and in bars after work. He scattered money around the site during demolition to motivate the crew. He sprang for triple lattes.

He also fell in love. When his girlfriend Angenette stopped by to help restore a mantel, he realized they were a team. They married April 6.

Morin's crew lifted floors, rebuilt walls and replaced windows. They replaced the 18 separate pieces that make the distinct band around the third floor.

Traffic began to slow as gawkers checked out the work.

"We could tell what phase of construction by the cars that went by," Morin said.

Bradley worked alongside the others, often grieving. The hardwood floors he refinished for his mother, ceramic tile and stained glass had been destroyed. She died of renal failure in a nursing home April 30, 1995. He salvaged a piece of marble from the home to mark her grave.

"It was definitely more than a business to her," he said. "She was enthralled with the historic aspect of the place. It was like a child."

The property is the focus of two lawsuits, with Precision Roofing - whose employee's torch is believed to have started the fire - and an insurance company. The third floor is unfinished pending those suits, but four of seven apartments are ready for occupancy. Their gleaming floors and gilt ceilings are all new.

"One fellow that walks past here, a retired priest, said that a home this old grows a soul of its own," Bradley said.

"It will be nice to have people living here again."

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.