Behind the Tudor timbers and leaded windows of 1628 W. Ninth Ave. lies a history shaped as much by remarkable women as by celebrated architecture. Completed in 1909, the Tudor Revival structure was conceived as a showpiece — the first home designed by Spokane’s celebrated “boy architect,” Earl W. Morrison. It was built by contractor Amil T. Johnson as a replica of Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. Yet its true legacy lies not just in its architecture, but in the strong women who have called it home. For more than a century, 1628 W. Ninth Ave. has been a home shaped by women whose influence reached far beyond its front door.
The house’s first mistress, Edwidge Woldson, welcomed her infant daughter, Myrtle, here in 1910. That child would grow to become one of Washington’s most influential philanthropists, a woman whose generosity transformed Spokane through donations ensuring the restoration of the Fox Theater (named after her father, it’s now known as the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox), and the creation of Edwidge Woldson Park. Upon her death at the age of 104 in 2014, Myrtle Woldson’s historic $55 million bequest to Gonzaga University created a scholarship fund and underwrote the design and construction of the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center on campus.
The Woldson’s home was subsequently purchased by Edward T. Hay and his wife, Mary Wynhoff Hay, who filled its oak-paneled rooms with elegant gatherings, civic club meetings and charitable events, reflecting the growing influence of Spokane women during the Progressive Era. Their daughter, Patsy Hay, carried that tradition into the 1920s, hosting teas, musicals and social events that made the home a gathering place for the South Hill’s next generation.
Emily Calabro and her husband, Brandon Franck, felt the imprint of all that history from the very beginning. “When Brandon and I first walked into the house,” Emily says, “we knew we weren’t just buying real estate, we were stepping into a stewardship.” As the new homeowners carefully peeled away layers of aluminum siding and drywall, they discovered a home whose history seemed to echo in their own lives. “The historical parallels between the trailblazers who built this place and the life we are building here with our daughter, Magnolia, are sometimes eerily uncanny,” Emily says.
Brandon, a firefighter who’s also pursuing a Master of Business Administration degree, was drawn to the home through the craftsmanship of builder Amil T. Johnson, who helped shape Spokane’s early neighborhoods. “I just wanted something that wasn’t cookie-cutter,” Brandon says. “Something that had been around. There’s something about true dimensional lumber, and big 6×8’s.”…