Emma Holmes House (1496 Court St NE) Salem, Oregon
National Register of Historic Places Data
The Emma Holmes House (1496 Court St NE) has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Court Street--Chemeketa Street Historic District. The following information has been imported from the National Register database and/or the Nomination Form . Please note that not all available data may be shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since listing.
- National Register ID
- 87001373
- Date Listed
- August 26, 1987
- Name
- Court Street--Chemeketa Street Historic District
- Address
- An irregularly shaped area of appr. 38.57 acres bounded by the closures of Court Street & Chemeketa St. on the west, Mill Creek on the north & east, and on the south by the rear lot lines of properties on the south side of Court St.
- City/Town
- Salem
- County
- Marion
- State
- Oregon
- Category
- district
- Level of Sig.
- local
- Areas of Sig.
- EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT; POLITICS/GOVERNMENT; ARCHITECTURE
Description
Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
Assessor's Map 26BD 7-3W
Tax Lot 81500-000
Owner: Mary L. Roberts, 11537 S.E. Flavel, Portland, OR 97266 Primary Contributing
The Emma Holmes House is one of three large American Foursquare (Craftsman) houses built on this section of Court Street in the period 1909- 1910 (see also #26 and #31). For a discussion of American Foursquare houses, see The Old-House Journal, X, 2 (Feb. 1982), pp. 29-32.
The Holmes House has two full stories plus a front-facing (north) attic dormer. The main roof and the dormer roof are hipped and flared toward the eaves, while the roof of the full front porch (a modification) is a slanted shed roof joined to the body of the house with mock side gables. The porch roof is supported by three square piers resting on a clapboard balustrade, and the cladding of the house as a whole (including the foundation) is clapboard, accented by corner boards and carpentered brackets in the eave overhangs and on the east and west wall oriel windows. The second floor windows are wide, double-hung sash with multiple panes over one.
History
Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
The property on which this house stands was sold in 1897 to Thomas Sims by Rhoda Edes, who had subdivided Ede's Addition. Sims sold the property in 1909 for $1000 to Agnes Harding. During 1909, M. Harding built the house for $2800 (Oregon Statesman, Jan. 1, 1910, Section 4), and in 1910 the property was sold to Emma Holmes for $3825.
Emma Holmes, a photographer, is listed as living in the house in the 1911 City Directory. She sold the house in 1912.
Later residents included S. S. and Emma East, who lived there while they built their new Bungalow several doors to the west in 1917 (cf. #9). Charles A. Sprague, governor of Oregon and editor-manager of the Oregon Statesman, lived in the house while he and his wife were building their new home on the northwest corner of Center and 14th Streets in the 1920's.
George C. Alexander, deputy superintendent of the State Police and later warden at the Oregon State Penitentiary, also lived here. The Easts, the Spragues, and Alexander all were renters; the house was owned from 1919 to 1943 by Ernest and Lylles Kapphahn, he being the manager of Kapphahn Transfer Co. The Kapphahns built house #17 at the rear of the lot in about 1925.
