This North End house was built in 1907 (finished in 1907, started in 1906), at the address of 1607 North Seventh Street. It was designed by a man named Anton Goreczky, who built it as an investment for his carpenter business. It was originally exactly identical to the house next to it.
Anton Goreczky was born in Austria on June 8, 1861. His mother died while he was young, and when his father re-married, Anton decided to leave. He was thirteen. After a while he became apprenticed to a cabinet maker, and after four years of dedication he began his own cabinet-making business, and as a traveling cabinet maker he traveled around Europe and tried to learn through night schooling. After being drafted by the Austrian government in 1878, he decided to embark out to America.
He landed in Baltimore on July 9th, 1878. After attempts to farm and settle down, Goreczky came to Boise, arriving in February of the year of 1891. He continued to use his skills as a carpenter and began contracting, and would eventually build many of the residences in Boise while becoming extremely rich. His success allowed him to build a planning mill under the name of his company, the Boise Sash and Door Factory, which made him even more efficient, until 1907, where it burnt to the ground. He rebuilt it and made it even more grand in the years that followed. He married an Austrian woman named Mary Sutty, and he had two children – Oscar and Elsie.
As stated before, Anton Goreczky built this house, and the one right next to it, as an investment for his carpenter business. After Goreczky bought the ground from a man named Resseguie (the street in the North End is named after this man) who had bought the main plot of land that makes up the North End indirectly from president Ulysses S. Grant. For Anton, this house began as a business deal, to continue the family carpentry/contracting business, and was one of the original houses in the historical North End as we think of it today.
Legend has it that this specific house served as not only an investment but also as a means of continuing the family line, as it is said Oscar Goreczky bought it from his father, Anton. This specific house has a “Folk Victorian” style, with some Queen Anne style elements thrown in. It has asymmetrical and decorative shingles, with different-sized windows and different wall materials, which makes it have a little Queen Anne in its’ style. It also has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a dining room.
This house affected Boise by significantly altering the frontier of the North End suburb by helping to continue the expansive housing area into the hills and towards the Highlands area today. If legends are to be believed, then its father-to-son heritage allowed for the Goreczky family to have a continued influence in the North End’s upcoming neighborhood. Because of the Goreczky’s high standing and material wealth, they probably were looked up to and seen as a rising influence in the business politics of early Boise.
This house is also historically important because it influenced in the building of Hyde Park, which is one of the greatest historical sites in all of Boise. It also could be marked as one of the houses built directly after Longfellow Elementary was built (Longfellow was built in 1905) and as a residence that would house future kids in that school. The fact that it has a traditional sense of style and is located so closely to both Longfellow Elementary and Hyde Park both reveal the ideals both at the time and in the neighborhood now – more of a historical, traditional, and hard-working view.
After Oscar Goreczky had this house for a couple of years he sold it to a man named Arch Lake, in 1918. After Arch Lake there were a couple of other homeowners, until the current homeowner, Aurelia Watson, bought it in 1997. She is occupant in the house today. But by that time there had been remodeling done by the previous homeowners in the form of a sun porch located in the front of the house.
This sun porch allows for a more southern, more “Folk Victorian” style as described in the previous paragraph. This is why the overall look of the house can be described as “Folk Victorian” now.
Overall this house had a grand effect on the historical Hyde Park and North End as we know it today. After Resseguie sold the land to Goreczky, it became a new suburb of a small town. Goreczky’s original purpose for this house to be an investment and the legend about him building it for his son both affect Boise in outlining how the North End came to be. It started as a business adventure in the form of real estate, but became more of a personal and familial pursuit by the end.