It's ours!

The school from the front, with knapweed filling the old lawn. 

After months of waiting and negotiating and renegotiating and waiting some more, the short sale has finally closed and this large, neglected, amazing place is ours as of Jan. 31, 2013.

It's a 1936 schoolhouse designed by Gustave Albin Pehrson, noted Spokane architect, and features Art Deco castings front and back. There are four original classrooms, and two more added in 1955. And there's a gym, the old kitchen, large boys' and girls' bathrooms, a couple of offices converted by previous owners into kitchens, and a foyer with rounded walls. About 11,000 square feet in all. It's set on eight rural acres overlooking a town too small to have a tavern, and the Little Spokane River wiggles? wanders? in the valley below.

And the flat roof leaks like crazy, and the finished floors in most rooms are gone, as are the original windows and most of the plaster-and-lathe walls. The school has been reimagined and partly (and mostly unsuccessfully IMHO) remodeled by several owners since being closed in 1977 and sold in 1980.

The school from the back at the gates off the gravel road. That's the gym on the right.