Architectural Treasures - Paris, Idaho

In 1978, the Idaho Historical Society cataloged over 80 architecturally significant historic houses and commercial buildings in Paris, Idaho.  In this and future columns we will highlight one or two. The Paris Museum has information about this and other homes. 

38 SITE NAME: Price Paris/ Lumber Company building              SITE # 72
180 S Main Street near West Second South, Paris, Idaho

The complex of structures formerly housing the Paris Lumber Company and Building Materials built in 1918, consists of several parts.  To the south is a showroom and office structure of frame construction, with a stuccoed, stylized false front facing east on Main, and a more lightly-constructed open open rack section extending behind it to the west.   A shed-roofed, three-sided, clapboard false-fronted lumber shed is to· the north.  A narrow open yard between the two is closed to the street by a broad gate of tall pickets. A tall picket fence also encloses the rear yard.

The unperforated northern false front, with its clapboards and molded cornice, is probably considerably the earlier of the two. The stuccoed southern front has a parapet gable form centered above two square side wings.  The entry is centered below, flanked by display windows. The entire facade is articulated by bold painted blocks of contrasting color, which emphasize the shapes of the subsections onto which they are placed: pentagonal gable form, square wings, first story strip, rectangular sidewalls, underlined windows, and framed door. The interior space has obviously been much revised, and a modern window has been cut into the attic.

The Paris Lumber Company building is architecturally and historically significant as a colorful example of commercial development in Paris, south of the main business row, and as the successor to the long-lived Paris Lumberyard in the canyon.  Heber Price, son of Robert, the owner of the mill, probably had this distinctive structure built· around 1918, after managing the family business for eight years after his father's death. The moving of the company to town corresponds to a shift in the products offered by the business, from locally-milled stock to manufactured goods. The use of the false-front form for the showroom as well as the more utilitarian shed illustrates the tenacious regard for older forms which is characteristic of Paris' architecture.  At the same time, the polychromy and pentagonal gable shape of the Lumber Company are curiously similar to the forms of Heber Price's own bungalow