The Kingsbury-Day House is among some of the oldest houses Boise has to offer. This house features a Victorian-Style theme with gabled roofs and two dormers, one in front and one in back. The building has two porches: one in front where Greek-like pillars support the house from the porch and one in back that is shaded by a very intricate pergola.
The inside of the house is primarily made of wood and stone. It has two bedrooms upstairs and an attic which is really creepy and it’s also very dust ridden. The kitchen is made of stone and the living room mostly of wood, some stone here and there. The back of the house features many intricate Romanesque arches that are part of the porch. The building itself is mainly made of stone and brick, some wood and craftsman occasionally integrated into the design. It also has a window that juts out of the side wall. Near the top of both walls and on the side of the deck you can see an intricate pattern of painted over wood that looks like a fence. Interestingly, the houses spiral is collapsed and not as prominent as the spirals on other Victorian houses.
The Kingsbury-Day House, located on 1225 Warm Springs Avenue, was originally built by James King, one of Boise’s first and most prominent architects, in 1896. King was famous for several of his Queen-Anne and Victorian Style homes that he’s built around Boise including the infamous Bishop’s House, located near the Old Penitentiary. He named the house after the late Californian businessman, Kingsbury Day, who had died just a few weeks earlier. Upon completion, the building was purchased by William Howells who took residence there for the next two and a half decades.
In 1920, Howells sold the house to James L. Steward who remodeled the building to feature a stone pattern on the outside along with some renovation along the interior. The Stewards continued to own the house into the early 1920s. From 1922 on, the house was passed on to numerous buyers eventually being remodelled again in 2011 for a simple modern update.
Today, this house is part of the Historical District of Warm Springs, a district that holds numerous homes of Victorian, Tudor, Queen Anne, and Colonial styles of historical importance, and has been marked as an official Boise Historic Landmark. It continues to stand a salient portion of Boise history that we continue to remember today.
Information gathered from Boise Public Library Archives, Ada County Real Estate Assessor, and Current Residents