The exterior of the house remains mostly unchanged from 1907, the most notable change being the replacement of all the wood lintels with arched brick lintels forming small part-circle transoms over each window and door. The stone sills remain.
Thayer House
The Thayer House represents a unique adaptation of the French southern colonial vernacular building tradition. Built of rough-hammered stone blocks, the square-shaped structure is completely encircled by a porch which serves as an extension of the hip roof to shelter the entire one story house. The porch is supported by simple, round wooden columns, and has a wooden balustrade around one side overlooking the slope that the house is built on.
The primary facade has a slightly off-center door flanked by a 1/1 double hung sash window on one side and a fixed two-light window with a leaded transom on the other side. Both windows have stone sills and simple wooden lintels. A hip roofed dormer with two single pane fixed lights pierces the roof above the entrance. The south elevation features a small, centrally-located single pane fixed window and two 1/1 double hung windows; each window has a stone sill and wooden lintel. Below the porch, lattice work panels which cover the stone foundation span the entire width of the dwelling. The rear (west) facade has an entrance leading off the porch flanked by two 1/1 double hung windows, and a small wooden addition (post-1927) currently used as a pantry. The north elevation is pierced by four 1/1 double hung windows, two of which are paired in the center. A corbeled brick chimney is located in the northeast corner of the house. A cornerstone laid in the southeast corner reads "A.W. Thayer AD 1907."
"The most portentious residence in Thompson" (as the Sanders County Ledger referred to it) was conceived and built by Arthur W. Thayer, a Ponderay, Idaho mining entrepreneur who came to Thompson Falls in 1906. He swiftly became a leading citizen of the town during the heady years of being named county seat for Sanders County. He extended his interests into timber, business, local politics, and in 1911 became editor of the Sanders County Ledger during the boom years of the dam building. Thayer left the Ledger in 1915 and began traveling around the country. He gradually began to sell off his Sanders County holdings after that time. This house was sold in 1917 to a W. Morrison who sold it six months later to Alex Allan. Allan kept the house till 1935. The present owner bought it in 1979.
The stone came from Thayer's own quarry on the Thompson River. It was chisled out in the Fall of 1906, and teamster Eugene Preston waited for snow to fall before hauling the stone on two four-horsed pulled sleighs to the building site. No builder is ever mentioned along with this building so Thayer probably supervised the construction. The interior plastering was done by M. M. McGregor of Plains, MT. Including the ice house and carriage stable, the total cost was $4,000.
From the NRHP Architectural Inventory