This story was originally written by Sharon Fisher. Enjoy!

If you actually remember the 1950s and 1960s, it may seem surprising that buildings from that era are now considered “historic.” But in the world of historic preservation, anything more than 50 years old qualifies.

That’s exactly why Boise’s Highlands neighborhood has drawn so much attention. Built in the 1950s as a new, modern subdivision, it still reflects the design sensibilities of the era – what we now call ​Midcentury Modern​.

“The Highlands neighborhood is really unique to Boise,” said Paula Benson, former president of Preservation Idaho. “It developed in the mid-1950s as Boise grew and the automobile allowed people to live further from downtown but still take advantage of the amenities of the growing city. While it’s not designated as a historic district with attendant protections, many of the homes are over 50 years old now and are considered historically significant because of their unique architecture individually and as a community.”

It’s a big change from the area once known as Slaughterhouse Gulch.

How the Highlands came to be

Back in the day, a farm in the area that ran cows also operated as a slaughterhouse, which gave the area its name, said Shelley Smith Eichmann, a realtor with Group One Sotheby’s International Realty in Boise, whose father originally developed the Highlands neighborhood.

“It really was a slaughterhouse,” Eichmann said. She recalled one woman who grew up near 15th Street and Hill Road saying that after heavy rain, her basement would fill with red water flowing down from Slaughterhouse Gulch.

Eichmann’s father, Richard B. Smith, graduated from Boise High School. He went to the University of Idaho, then served in Germany for 2 ½ years during World War II. When he returned, he had some GI Bill money, and said to some of his friends, “’Hey, guys, let’s buy the apple orchard at the end of Harrison Boulevard and develop it,’” she related. “Many of my father’s friends told him, ‘Richard, it’ll never be anything but Slaughterhouse Gulch.’”

But Smith got three of his friends to invest with him, and after 20 years, with the Highlands progressing so well, he proved them wrong, Eichmann said. “They regretted not investing with him.”

Early foothills development

The Highlands was the first major residential development in the Boise Foothills, which had always been considered a natural barrier to Boise’s growth.

Why Highlands? “Because it’s high, and he thought that it was a good name,” Eichmann said. In fact, her dad collected street names from other cities for it, she recalled. “We’d go on vacation, and if we came across a road name that fit, he’d say, ‘Hey, write that down, it’ll work out well in the Highlands,'” she said.

Wyndemere Drive, for example, is named after the Windermere neighborhood in Seattle. “He said, ‘That’s a good name,’ so we wrote it down,” Eichmann said. “Up on that ridge, it was windy. So he dropped off the silent ‘r’ and changed it to Wynd.”

The Highlands became the model not just for building a suburb, but selling it, too. “In 1956, it was the first location for a new concept to promote home ownership, the ‘Parade of Homes,’” said Dan Everhart, State Historic Preservation Office Outreach Historian for the Idaho Historical Society. “It was to introduce post-war Boiseans to the concept of modern living in a modern home. It’s no surprise that it was a trendsetter.”

A real community

The Highlands was more than just a set of houses – it was an actual community. “They chose to make their community a little self-sufficient, with space for commercial development, a grocery store, shops, and the school district developed an elementary school,” as well as the community hosting a country club, Everhart said. That level of intentional planning helped shape the Highlands into more than just a housing development. “It’s no accident that these civic and social elements of the neighborhood were also there.”

Smith was a third-generation Boisean and his grandfather was the first schoolteacher in Boise in the 1860s. He donated the land for Highlands Elementary School, built in the 1960s. “It was built on different levels because it was in the Foothills,” Eichmann said.

Several years ago, the school was demolished and replaced. “There was a pretty big commotion on the proposed demolition,” Everhart said. “There were a lot of folks who felt the Highlands school represented the architectural style of the time and that neighborhood.”

On the other hand, Eichmann, who grew up in the neighborhood, said she wasn’t sad to see the old school go. It had asbestos and was not ADA-approved. “They tore down the old school and built a magnificent new school that’s ADA-approved,” she said. “This is a spectacular, brand-new school for 650 students. Dad’s watching from heaven and I know he’s thrilled.”

Highlands houses

Individual builders came up with the design of the houses, following size and quality requirements and also requiring developer approval, Eichmann said. Lots went for around $2,000, with the houses priced at around $17,000. “That was a lot back then,” she said.

Some houses were designed by renowned Idaho architects such as Art Troutner, Nat Adams, and Joseph LaMarch.

“If you were to ask most folks who bought and lived in the Highlands, they would say they saw themselves as middle-class,” Everhart said.

Eichmann described an idyllic childhood, with “lots and lots of kids” and a 40-acre horse pasture below her house on 701 Wyndemere. “It was fun to grow up with horses in our backyard,” she said. The hills, however, were more of a challenge. “We had bikes, but we didn’t have Foothills-type bikes,” she said. “They were great going down, but going up was not.”

As a new suburb, yards didn’t yet have the towering trees they enjoy today. “For everybody who bought a lot from him, his gift was a flowering peach tree,” Eichmann said about her dad. “It was beautiful in the spring when everybody had a flowering peach tree in their front yard.” And she remembered how excited she was when she saw the first squirrel.

In the mid-1960s, Highlands got a sewer system and connected to city water. That meant Eichmann’s family could get an in-ground pool. “We couldn’t have it until the sewer came in,” she said. “That’s where the septic tank was.”

The Highlands today

While the Highlands is still largely intact from its original development, there have been changes, Everhart said. “When I drive through the Highlands, I see alterations and demolitions, particularly on the view lots, because they’re the most desirable,” he said.

In an effort to bring attention to and help preserve the Highlands, Preservation Idaho hosted a ​Heritage Homes Tour​ in 2013, Benson said. “We have a section of the ​Idaho Architecture Project devoted to the Highlands​ and many of the great homes there are listed and described.”

“Some of those houses would be on my list,” Everhart said. “611 Wyndemere is just awesome,” as is 105 East Highland View Drive, he said. But there’s not a particular list of specific houses or listings on the National Registry of Historic Places. “I have not heard any movement to protect the neighborhood,” he said. “Most of our post-war neighborhoods have never been documented. If the city wished, they could take on that task, but it’s not on anybody’s list.”

Particularly since the demolition of the school, there’s been more of a sense of history about the Highlands. “This reflects the pride and rest that many owners in the area have regarding their homes and, as a result, there is a more tacit protection that has allowed Boise to reap the benefit of the continued presence of these beautiful buildings,” Benson said.

And, like most parts of Boise, even a National Registry listing wouldn’t necessarily protect a house from modification or even demolition. “Anyone may do whatever they wish, without concern about protecting the historic nature of the property itself, or the neighborhood,” Everhart said.

“There are some individually important houses,” Everhart said. “But it’s the collection of houses, it’s the neighborhood taken as a whole, that really gives you that sense of post-war style and development.”

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

Marissa