Across downtown Spokane, early apartment buildings rose as anchors of urban living, offering compact homes close to streetcars, shops, and the city’s growing commercial core. Decades later, those same structures have transformed into cafés, offices, boutiques, and creative spaces that repurpose their bones without erasing their past. Each building carries its own arc, from residential necessity to modern utility, turning yesterday’s front doors into today’s welcome mats, one brick at a time.
Ammann Apartments: From Homes and Hospitality to Coffee and Commerce
Overlooking the Spokane River in the historic Browne’s Addition neighborhood, the Amman Apartments stand as a brilliant example of how early multi-family housing can be masterfully adapted for modern utility. Built in 1904 by one of Spokane’s most prolific builders, Albert Held, it’s one of four apartment buildings he designed between 1904 and 1911 that were later listed together on the National Register of Historic Places. Compared to its more elaborate siblings, San Marco, Knickerbocker, and Breslin, the Ammann keeps things simple with a square layout, though the classical brick structure was originally hailed for its innovation and luxury, designed specifically to move away from standard “railroad” flat layouts by utilizing narrow hallways and ensuring every room had a view of the Spokane River. The heart of the building is its geometric central hall, where striking twin staircases gracefully curve up to a second-story balcony.
While it served as residential housing for over eighty years, a meticulous National Park Service-certified rehabilitation in 1985 turned the apartments into a dynamic mix of commercial spaces. Today, known affectionately as The Dormitory, the historic property invites visitors to admire its grand architectural bones while stopping by for fresh roasts at the main-floor coffee shop, picking up artisanal goods at the bakery and cheese shop, or visiting the various office spaces bustling on the upper level.
Duquesne Apartments: From Small Rooms to Strategic Research
Rising as a rare example of a freestanding, mid-block structure on the east end of Spokane’s Downtown Historic District, the Duquesne Apartments offers a fascinating window into the city’s turn-of-the-century population boom. Despite functioning as everyday apartments after its 1904 construction, the Commercial Vernacular-style building carried the hallmarks of a single-room occupancy hotel, with tiny living units that offered only a sink and no kitchen or bathroom. The Duquesne operated continuously as lower- to middle-income housing for more than a century before closing around 2006 and sitting vacant for several years.
It found new purpose when it was purchased by the owners of Strategic Research Associates, a market research company founded in 1996 that conducts focus groups and telephone surveys to help local businesses make informed decisions, for $325,000. The firm relocated its 10 employees into the building as its sole occupant, drawn by the central downtown location and ample parking.
Whitten Block: A Post-Fire Landmark Reborn as The Louie
Completed in November 1890, just a year after the Great Spokane Fire, the Whitten Block stands as one of only a handful of buildings that survived the city’s rebuilding effort, and the sole remaining commercial structure designed by architect Lorenzo M. Boardman. Built for $40,000 by investor L.B. Whitten, the five-story structure was designed from the beginning as a mixed-use marvel, featuring commercial bays on the ground floor and four upper stories that held some of Spokane’s very first dedicated apartment units, which were home to many of the city’s prominent society members who hadn’t yet had time to rebuild after the fire.
It became a highly desirable downtown hub, eventually owned and managed for nearly fifty years by Whitten’s former wife, pioneering female physician Dr. Georgia Ballou Whitten, while housing early icons like the Crescent Department Store and a young Louis Davenport, who lived upstairs and ran his first restaurant here before building his famous hotel across the street. In 1985, the Whitten Block was physically combined with the adjacent Miller Block, and its historic apartment walls have since become hotel rooms, first functioning as the Hotel Lusso before a 2025 renovation from The Davenport Hotel Collection transformed the space once more, this time renaming it The Louie in honor of the building’s most famous former tenant.
Metropole Apartments: A Century of Homes Above, a New Era of Business Below
Constructed during the Lilac City’s most significant period of growth, the Metropole Apartments stands out as a rare architectural survivor that never stopped serving its original purpose as downtown residential housing. Built in 1901 by architect Charles F. White, the Metropole was designed as an SRO-style building for working-class tenants, though each unit came equipped with its own kitchen and bathroom, a step up from the bare-bones units common at the time.
More than a century later, the building is still doing exactly what it was built to do, housing 16 residential units alongside four ground-floor storefronts that serve as a bustling hub for local entrepreneurs. While a historic ornate doorway and intricate wood staircase lead exclusively to the homes upstairs, a walk along the exterior sidewalk reveals an independent, street-facing community all its own featuring current tenants Barili Cellars, a boutique winery crafting small-batch, Italian-inspired wines; Glaze Nail Salon & Spa, a five-star favorite for affordable, high-quality nail care; Black Bee Tattoos, Spokane’s first trans-owned tattoo studio; and The Studio, a collaborative beauty space that’s claimed Inlander’s “Best Hair Salon” title five years running.
What makes these structures so remarkable is their sheer resilience in the face of a changing city. While the world around them modernized, they quietly held their ground, transitioning from necessary shelters for early pioneers to vibrant platforms for today’s independent businesses. They show that preservation doesn’t mean keeping a place frozen in time; it means letting it grow along with the community. These landmarks continue to bridge the gap between Spokane’s industrious past and its creative present, one visitor at a time.
