The University of Idaho president’s house is meant to lodge the university’s highest-ranking administrator and provide a space for university events and fundraisers.
However, outgoing President Chuck Staben didn’t live in it, nor does he plan to live in the new one slated to be finished this fall, though he did say through a spokesperson he’ll use the house to host events.
“It will be a huge benefit to the university to have this new house,” Staben, who announced in May his contract would not be renewed, said in a prepared statement. “It will be an asset in recruiting the next president and will serve the needs of the next presidential family.”
That’s because, just before he came to UI, the university got approval to begin a project to demolish the previous house built in 1966 and erect a new one in the same location on Nez Perce Drive near the water tower. Costs later came in just under $2 million.
To house the incoming administrator coming from the University of South Dakota, the university purchased a home for Staben to use in Moscow, located on 6th Street, said Jodi Walker, director of communications.
The university paid $478,000 for the home, which was built prior to the purchase, Walker said.
Figures that high aren’t out of the ordinary to house university presidents, public officials and company executives.
An Inside Higher Ed study last year found most presidents lived in university-provided homes, but those that were offered stipends could support a $1 million mortgage. The state of Idaho, for instance, pays outgoing Gov. Butch Otter $54,000 a year just to live at his own ranch outside Boise, the Idaho Press Tribune reports.
An Idaho Education News article reported the new presidents of Idaho State University and Lewis-Clark State College were provided on-campus president’s residence, and Boise State University’s now retired president was paid a $26,000-a-year housing allowance.
Nels Reese
Retired UI professor of architecture, Nels Reese, who was also director of facilities for a time, said the new house’s cost of construction isn’t worth gawking at, especially considering the current housing market. The median price of homes listed for sale in Moscow is $275,000, only $20,000 below that same figure in Boise, according to Zillow’s analysis of June listings.
“$2 million is not much in today’s market,” Reese said. “I mean, just average homes in Moscow are selling from $250,000 to $500,000. We don’t have many (company) executives in Moscow,” but he estimated company executives in Boise have homes upwards of $1.5 million.
Staben, UI’s 18th President, will have been at UI for 5 years when his contract ends June 30, 2019. It’s the latest in short tenures for UI presidents and other top administrators.
The announcement of his departure came following reports of Title IX violations by UI Athletic Director Rob Spear, a push by athletics boosters for Staben’s departure and over half a year after he was a finalist for president of the University of New Mexico.
CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
Months before Staben came aboard in early 2014, the university received approval to embark on a project to design and build a new president’s house that would replace the previous one.
Officials said the university decided they should build a new residence instead of repairing the previous one after cost estimates to repair and upgrade came in near half a million dollars.
The new house is in the same location as the previous one, on Nez Perce Drive just a short walk away from the UI water tower. UI Facilities Director Ray Pankoff estimates it’ll be complete in late October or early November.
Contractors first broke ground on the project last fall. Several years passed between project approval and construction as administrators mulled bids from several different contractors based on designs from an architectural firm, which Pankopf said came in above the project budget.
“It became very difficult to find a way forward using that existing structure,” he said.
The design and bidding process was estimated to cost $30,000 beforehand, according to Pankopf; expenditure figures weren’t readily available. The total project budget was $1.95 million, with $1.3 million coming from the donation-funded UI Foundation.
Instead of the original process of having firm design plans and having contractors bid to do the job, he said the university opted to find a team of architects and contractors together. Then they set a project budget and outlined their needs, Pankopf explained, tasking them with “coming up with a design solution that meets the budget.”
After that, the university began looking before solidifying plans in October 2016 for the new house with two companies led by Vandal alumni: Golis Construction, in Moscow, and Zimmeray Studios, in Seattle.
On top of the previous structure being about 60 years old, another sizeable driver for the replacement was its layout and split-level structure.
“The house itself as it was originally designed and built was kind of tight and a bit cramped,” Pankopf said.
Reese, who was director of facilities for eight years before teaching architecture for nearly two decades, agreed.
“If you did a public event, you were always infringing on the family’s life,” he said.
In a press release announcing the start of construction last September, the university said the new house will be designed in a more contemporary manner, with living spaces doubling as entertainment areas for small gatherings. The house itself is 5,200 square feet. Several aspects of the 1966 home are being used in the new residence, including its footings, foundations, masonry fireplace and Basque-carved entry doors.
UI’S HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL HOUSING
The 1996-home was the first on-campus house built for UI presidents to live in, according to Reese, a Vandal alumnus who serves as the Vice Chair of the Moscow Historic Preservation Commission.
Before that, the previous home, called the “President’s Residence,” was located on First Street. It was built in 1921 and occupied until 1955, according to the UI library’s campus collection.
Reese, who graduated from UI in 1962, said he lived a few doors down from the house and wasn’t the least impressed.
“It was a nice, fairly large house, but it wasn’t very distinctive,” he said.
He said there was one previous house for UI presidents before then, also off campus, but said it was only occupied f for a few years.
“My presumption is that the presidents lived in some house close to the university (before then), but no one seems to talk about it very much,” Reese said. “Really, the first house on campus for the president, I believe, was the one in 1966.”
The former Moscow planning and zoning commissioner said that’s because, unlike some other Idaho public colleges, University of Idaho isn’t near a residential or historic area. He noted that Boise State University is in the same boat, and now-retired President Bob Kustra lived off campus.
“Usually the presidents either get a home or (the university) purchases a home or they pay them a stipend so they can rent a place,” Reese said. “LCSC and ISU have rather handsome historic homes that the presidents live in. Our campus … isn’t contiguous to a historic place or a residential area, so (the university) decided in 1966 to build an on-campus house.”
Kyle Pfannenstiel can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @pfannyyy
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Nels Reese.