Historic Brown House demolished

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

The Brown House – the former home of Jim and Jean Brown, who once owned Schweitzer Mountain Resort and substantial land holdings in Bonner County – was demolished Wednesday morning.

Located just north of Bonner General Health, the home was purchased by BGH in 1999 and used as office space until recent years.

Photo by Ben Olson.

BGH CEO Sheryl Rickard wrote in a statement Tuesday that the home was never intended to be used as permanent office space.

“Bonner General Hospital purchased the Brown House and property in 1999,” Rickard wrote. “The house served us well for many years as office space and a beautiful conference room. However, it was never intended to be used as permanent office space since it was a residence and therefore created many challenges such as inefficient office space, no cooling system, and it was not ADA (American with Disabilities Act) compliant. We made the decision years ago that it was not prudent to put our limited funds into renovating the house to bring it up to code and to be ADA compliant and that we needed to put any available funds into patient care, equipment and technology upgrades. We are now in need of utilizing that property for hospital expansion.”

Rickard said a new building will be constructed on the property.

“The new building will be smaller and be able to be expanded in the future as needed,” she said. “Initially, it will house the new emergency power generator for the hospital.”

Relatives of the Browns confirmed they were able to access the property to salvage moldings and other materials prior to demolition.

While we have you ...

... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.

You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.

Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal

You may also like...

Close [x]

Want to support independent local journalism?

The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.