Switzer House

The Queen Anne style is graciously expressed in this well-preserved wood-frame residence built for Northwest Lumber Company secretary George McCrea in 1910. An irregular floorplan, pent-roof gables, two-story bay windows, and wraparound porch (now partially enclosed) demonstrate the tenacity of this long-favored style.

Lew and Blanche Switzer owned the home from the 1920s until 1947. Switzer was an early settler who came to Kalispell with the Missoula Mercantile when it moved from Demersville in the early 1890s. In 1907, he opened the Switzer Furniture Company. By 1921, Switzer had the largest furniture business in northwest Montana and promised “to satisfy any whim in furniture or decoration.

” The Switzers were fortunate to have been in that line of business in 1929 when smoke damage from a fire necessitated redecoration of all the walls. The elegant home features a large entry hall, a “fruit room,” five bedrooms and a spacious third floor garret. An attached two-car sunken garage, added by 1927, was one of the first in Kalispell.