In May of 1937, Mr. J.M. Neil bought the small craftsman style home on the corner of Brumback and 7th. 1902 N. 7th was bought for $2250 from the sheriff of Boise, N. T. Boyd. A fairly high priced home for its size. He designed and built the home in 1935. The structure was the highest elevated home in all of Boise at the time. Anything north of Brumback wasn’t built till after 1937, because homes further north were too far from Fort Boise.
Mr. Neil’s son, Letcher, lived in the 1399 square foot home with his wife Marrold and children*. They also rented the basement of the home to K. K. McDonald who was a widower. The Neil’s owned the Neil Cash Coal co. and was one of the wealthiest families in Boise.
In the 1970s, the family living in the home applied for an attached garage 4 times and was denied each time because the city said that they could build a garage but it had to be a detached structure. So they built a detached shed as a guest room/ office. And in 1980 Rick Johnson bought the house 34,000. And the house had recently been painted blue and all the doorways had been replaced by large colonial arches. Rick sold the home to Mr. Gugand, a French chef at Sun Valley who bought the house with cash money for 125,000 who bought the house for his son so he could go to BSU.
His son graduated and it was a short sale to Tim Bever who bought the home for his son as well and his son’s wife, in 2010 Tim applied for an attached garage and was accepted, he built the attached garage himself and his son’s wife turned the shed in the back into an art studio. She had 3rd stage leukemia and passed away in 2011. The studio is now an apartment that Mr. Bever rents out and the home is currently a woody green.
The property falls within the north end historic district boundaries and the Boise city historic district planning and zoning regulates all homes within this district meaning if you want to build or alter the original home you must file for an appeal. Leon Lenkins, a Boise city planner said that if the Certificate of Appropriateness is not fulfilled or extended it will be void without further notification. So any alterations done to the home had to be done before 2011.
*Inaccuracies fixed thanks to help from June Stiehl in Jan 2015.