About the Barnhart Associates Real Estate Historic Office Building

A Eugene Landmark

The historic SOULTS-WESTFALL building is a distinctive and treasured representation of the West Coast "Craftsman" style of architecture, popularized in various forms after the turn of the century. Horizontal and massive in feeling, the building utilizes a dramatic use of wooden construction. Beams at the first and second story ceilings project through the eaves and are supported by elaborate heavy brackets at the gabled ends and paired light stickwork on the non-gabled sides. The veranda roof is supported by massive "group posts" and elaborate heavy brackets.

This bungalow style, first appearing in the 1890's, reached its zenith under the creative auspices of Charles and Henry Greene, hugely talented architects out of the Pasadena area and was developed in a more ecletic fashion by Bernard Maybeck throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Both drew conceptually from the famed Beaux Arts School of Design in Paris.

The specific architect, builder or source for the design of this original duplex has, unfortunately, been lost to time. It appears likely that the Westfalls may have seen examples of the style when they lived in Lancaster, California (less than 40 miles north of Pasadena) before they moved to Eugene in 1909. The duplex was designed as a home for the Westfalls and their daughter and her husband, Homer Soults. It is one of only two known structures in Eugene built in this appealing style.