On October, 16, 1928 J.R. Black secured a building permit to construct a $6,000 house. Black contracted with Boise builder J.O. Jordan and Son to both design and build the house. Completed in 1929, the one-and-a-half story brick and half-timber residence displays Tudor Revival elements in its steep intersecting gables, tall chimney stack, decorative brickwork, and narrow multi-light windows. The style was relatively uncommon before World War I, but exploded in popularity during the 1920s and 30s. New masonry techniques allowed builders to mimic the exteriors of medieval models using stone, clinker brick, wood and stucco. Jordan and Son used pattern-book plans as the basis for many of the houses they designed by transforming the basic plans into a collection of Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival houses throughout the North End.
The house was sympathetically remodeled in 1979 when the second floor attic was converted into bedrooms. It?s likely that the exterior of the house was modified by changing the original hip roof to a gable roof, adding windows and a dormer to the second floor, and bumping out the central gable of the fa?ade. The alterations compliment the original character of the house.
Little is known of the original owner, J.R. Black, but not long after it was built George and Mina Buhn acquired the house. George was born in Wisconsin and trained as a jeweler in Peoria, Illinois. He moved west first opening a store in Redlands, California, and later moving to Bellingham, Washington. He moved to Boise in 1910 and opened a jewelry store on Main Street marrying Mina Clark, a Boise resident, in 1911. The Buhns lived in the house until about 1932. William and Anna McBratney were the next residents and moved into the house in 1933. William founded McBratney funeral home in 1916 in a store-front location on Idaho Street. In 1929 he moved into a building at Ninth and State streets – the first building in Idaho specifically built as a funeral chapel. He sold the business to Earl Alden in 1949. William and Anna raised their two children, Edward and Florence, in the house and lived there until William died in 1961.
This home was featured on the 12th Annual Heritage Homes Tour in 2014 thanks to the generosity of the current homeowners Kelly Beach and Mark Clark.