In the fall of 1995, Brian Westmoreland volunteered on the Cheney Cowles Museum (now the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture) Historic Preservation Committee. As the group prepared for its 1996 Mother’s Day Home Tour in Spokane’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood, each committee member was assigned one or two prospective homes to visit. Westmoreland got the Koerner House.
When he pulled up in front, Westmoreland realized it was a house he’d driven past his entire life — his mother’s best friend lived a block away. The property looked a little rough, with downed trees still littering the yard after a recent ice storm. But the house itself, a historic Swiss chalet-style home, was stunning.
Navigating carefully through the debris, he knocked on the front door and was further surprised when it was opened by someone he knew: Kathy Loftin. She welcomed him in, and they sat down to catch up and talk about the upcoming home tour. Westmoreland knew Kathy’s ex-husband, Geoff, through his lighting store, Luminaria (now Revival Lighting). During their visit, Kathy expressed interest in having her home included in the tour but warned that it would likely be on the market before Mother’s Day.
“No, it won’t,” said Westmoreland.
He had decided, on the spot, to buy the house.
It was a serendipitous meeting: Loftin was no longer comfortable living alone in the large Swiss Chalet home and was looking for a Craftsman bungalow near Manito Park, the very type of home that Westmoreland already happened to own. After a short series of negotiations that included both homes and other investment properties each owned, the two parties rented a moving truck and swapped furnishings on the same day.
“Growing up as an Air Force brat,” Westmoreland’s wife, Patty says, “Brian needed a forever house, even at 30. His lifelong dream was to find a place he loved and stay there from then on. He really was looking for the place he never was going to move from.” The house had two extra lots and a carriage house, perfect for accommodating Westmoreland’s passion for cars. And he knew it would hold his interest long-term. Though the Loftins had been renovating the main living areas, the rest of the house needed a huge amount of work. Westmoreland didn’t mind. “It was one of the coolest houses I’d ever seen.” The home’s nomination to the Spokane Historic Register was almost completed when he acquired it, and local historian Linda Yeomans finished the job. “I wanted a significant house, one I knew I could get on the registry. I wanted to be part of that whole thing,” Westmoreland says.
Little did he know that he was also changing the direction of his entire life. Increasingly disenchanted with his job as a stockbroker, within three months of moving into the house Westmoreland had quit his job and launched Authentic Restoration Services. He didn’t have a plan, but he felt the need to take his mother’s advice to find something creative, something he loved, something that was everything he was…