In May of 1977 the Kirkland Historical Commission (KHS) was started by Ken Warnes, Arline Ely, author of “Our Foundering Fathers”, and Shannon Weiss. Their objective in forming the KHC was to raise awareness of Kirkland’s historic buildings, focusing mostly on houses.
Ken moved several houses to save them from demolition by developers; the French House, the Sutthoff House, (the sanatorium – first hospital) and a house in Juanita that unfortunately didn’t survive the move. Ken was President for about a year and then moved on. Vic Sampson, a resident of Kirkland and an attorney was the next President. He wrote the by-laws and made KHC a legal and viable organization.
Susie Cregar (Dr. Trueblood House) and Chris Whitely (the Newberry House) later became Co-Presidents of KHC. Times were very different back then; most families who were involved in the organization were old house owners who were interested in researching and fixing up their homes. Most of the moms were stay-at-home, volunteering their time and taking the kids with them to meetings. We got together during the day to plan fundraising events, mostly historic home tours and/or a holiday gift show.
Barbara Sampson (Vic’s wife), was very talented at flower arranging. She taught many of us how to make fresh wreaths (from greens, and holly we collected from our yards), bow making, and table decorating. WE spent many cold days in Jan Landry’s (the Landry House) greenhouse making all these items to give to each homeowner who opened their house for a Christmas tour.
The Kirkland Woman’s Club members were always a huge help during the tours. They dressed up in period dresses and were hostesses at the tours. One Spring before a tour we had a hat decorating party at the Woman’s Club; with help from a local silk flower business we learned how to make fancy period hats – decorated with beautiful silk flowers!
Another of the focuses back then was how to renovate these old houses. The night meetings were when the men attended our meetings. We talked about jacking up porches or houses, shared house jacks, painting issues, removing wallpaper, who knew a good plumber, or was there someone who could help out. We took turns having the meetings at each other’s house which gave everyone the opportunity to ask for help on specific issues and visit all our historic houses.
We formed committees at these meetings to do research on the history of the six or so houses that were going to be on the tour that year. One of our incentives for people to agree to open their house for a tour was that we would do a history of their home and give it to them. No internet back then – research was done the old fashioned way, a trip to Seattle to search the original tax roll books in the Assessors office; very large, heavy books that were written in beautiful script. No camera phones back then either – everything had to be handwritten. Sometimes it meant a trip to the University of Washington and the Suzilo Library. That was when the Historic Sites Committee was formed. Besides doing research, we put together criteria, that made sense to the history of Kirkland, to be considered a “Designated Kirkland Historic Commission Site”. This was when the white with black plaques were first done. The buildings that were built by the Kirkland Land and Improvement Company (Peter Kirk’s development company) from about 1889 – 1891 were the first ones designated.
In 1989 we had our last home tour, in honor of the State Centennial. This was a huge task; the workers had dwindled and the Board and Committee Chairs were worn out. After that tour KHC went into a three year hiatus.
In 1992, Barbara Loomis decided to reactivate the organization. Pulling out her old period dress and hat, she handed our brochures at the summer art festival. These brochures had information about Kirkland’s historic sites and invited interested parties to come to a meeting to talk about re-starting the Kirkland Historic Commission.
Bob Burke and Barbara Loomis, both former Kirkland Planning Commission members, put together “Historical Preservation in Kirkland”, a report that was adopted and put into the City of Kirkland’s Comprehensive Plan. In 1993, they received an award from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
In 1994, the Kirkland Historic Commission changed its name to the Kirkland Heritage Society, which better exemplifies a more encompassing mission. In that same year, the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation recognized the KHS newsletter “Blackberry Preserves”, which Matt McCauley started.
