Julius Steinmeier House, Warm Springs Avenue, Boise, Idaho

February 03, 2023

Julius Steinmeier House, Warm Springs Avenue, Boise, Idaho

If you've just gotten your heating bill and it's making you consider alternate forms of energy, you might be interested in relocating to Boise, the birthplace of home geothermal heat.

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In 1892, Warm Springs Avenue became the city's hot spot to live. The Julius Steinmeier House didn't start off there, but much like Julius Steinmeier himself, it found a way to better its circumstances.

The "Western Colonial Revival" house was designed in 1907 by architect John W. Smith, who is best known for the 1909 Glenns Ferry School.

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If you're thinking that "Western Colonial Revival" isn't really a thing and that the house appears to be more Arts and Crafts style than Colonial Revival, you're right.

The house is pretty impressive, though, whatever style you choose to call it.

Like the Sorrell House we saw last week, the Steinmeier House still has its original wood moldings and pocket doors, although it also has portiere curtains at the living and dining rooms.

At first it bothered me that the fireplace and window are so asymmetrical. But, once you make a feature out of it instead, using mural panels, it's not so bad:

{inspired by this Doniphan Moore design}

Although the dining room does have its original wainscoting and coffered ceiling, they appear to have been painted:

So, if it were mine, I'd paint them again:

{inspired by this Home Depot ad and by Pierre Frey Petit Parc wallpaper}

I'm not sure which elements are original to the kitchen, but it's a very roomy space with a walk-in pantry.

There's also this charming powder bathroom on the first floor.

Upstairs are five bedrooms and two bathrooms. The house has 5,205 square feet.

The master suite is what caught my eye in the first place, because of its adjoining dressing room:

It reminded me of Aerin Lauder's. If you're lucky enough to have a dressing room, you have to go glam:

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Here is the bathroom for that master suite.

The other bedrooms all have pretty great features of their own:

Even though it's unfinished, the basement level offers a lot of potential...

and the beginnings of nice fourth bathroom:

The backyard seems to have lots of pretty potential, too:

After all, it already has the original carriage house:

It also has this. Not sure what exactly is going on here, but I'm labeling it Warm Springs' warm spring:

The Warm Springs neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places. House #32 on that document is the Julius Steinmeier House. It was originally built on the corner of First and Idaho before it was relocated. The reason why it moved might have had something to do with its neighbors.

You see, instead of the Julius Steinmeier House, a better name for it might be the Bertha Falk Steinmeier House. In Boise, the Falks are the folks that were the talk of the town.

Julius Steinmeier (1862-1917) was an immigrant from Munich who married Bertha Falk Steinmeier (1869-1937). Her father David and uncle Nathan were part of the Boise Basin Gold Rush and purportedly built the first smelter in Idaho.

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From there, they branched into the mercantile business and real estate development.

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Julius Steinmeier became an executive for the Falk Mercantile Company, and later, the Nampa Department Store.

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Their business did so well selling "everything usually found in general merchandise establishments" that in 1891 the DeLamar Nugget newspaper gave Julius Steinmeier a chance to brag about its prosperity: