This house is a beautiful craftsman style home that was built by the local architectural firm Wayland and Fennel. The house has elements of greek revival in the pillars on the front. The gabled roof and sleeper porch are reminiscent of the craftsman style, however the unexposed eaves and use of concrete instead of wood on the sides of the front steps are not. The clapboard exterior can be traced back to Cape Cod style house.
Despite having a few eclectic features, this amazing home is a great example of craftsman architecture both inside and out. The intricate woodwork on the ceiling above the sleeper porch is very exquisite and no doubt a show of the carpenters ability. The craftsman style is reflected inside by the grand wooden staircase in the entrance and the intricate woodwork in the molding windows ect. In the back yard there is a very old fireplace made of river rock and brick, its design is similar to a Boston brick oven and appears to be as old as the house itself (104 years!). The brick chimney in the seen in the back of the house was connected to a coal room, which would have been used to heat the house by letting hot air flow through the radiators seen throughout the house. The coal room has since been converted into a bathroom.
Most if not all of the windows in the house are original and still run on a counterweight system, which reflects the technologies of the time as when this house was being built elevators were beginning to gain popularity. The house came with a large two story garage with a second story which may have been used for storage. The house itself is four stories; it has a basement, main floor second floor, and an attic. By the size of the home and the quality of the craftsmanship it is easy to tell that the owners of this home were well off if not extremely wealthy.
The home, as mentioned before was built in 1910, for a family called the Cage’s. John W. Cages married his wife Pauline Davis in February of 1891 and by the time 1910 rolled around were building what is now the Freemuth’s house for the couple and their then ten year old daughter. The family was very well off and in fact owned the entire block that the house resides on. How were the cages so wealthy? Well John was a man of the hotel business and had worked for the overland hotel in Boise for years before quitting to become part of the board for a new hotel being built in Boise, The Idanha. Since Cage was the only member who did not make a living as a rancher, he was elected treasurer and eventually became manager of the hotel.
By the time of this home’s construction, John W Cage had been working at the Idanha as manager for just about nine years. As one of the owners and a full time manager of the ‘hippist’ new joint in Boise, John W Cage found himself with quite a bit of money.