Did Gen. George C. Marshall stand thoughtfully atop this third-floor turret in the late 1930s, taking in a bird’s-eye view of his U.S. Army base while considering big trouble on the horizon in Europe?
You can visit the very same spot — and try for similarly deep thoughts — during tours set for Saturday of “secret spaces” tucked away on historic Officers Row. Later in May, tours of the nearby Post Hospital will explore a building that is not open to the public at all.
Historical experts and staff members with The Historic Trust are hosting these tours to highlight National Preservation Month, which is May.
“We have always celebrated Preservation Month, discreetly,” Historic Trust CEO Temple Lentz said. “This year, we decided to go bigger. Preservation is the heart of what we do at the Trust.”
In addition to the Marshall House’s open-air turret and George Marshall’s library and personal office, Saturday’s tours will visit rarely seen attics, verandas, stairways, hallways and former living quarters that now serve as offices, banquet spaces, storage areas and more at the Grant House and the O.O. Howard House. Many of these spaces have been preserved or restored with period (or period-looking) furnishings, decorations and details.
Saturday’s three tours will start simultaneously at 10 a.m. in three different Officers Row buildings. Visitors in each location will start by listening to a short, site-specific talk about history, architecture and restoration. After that, visitors will have about half an hour to meander the historic spaces on their own before moving on to the next building.
The entire event will take three hours. Tickets are $25. (Important note: Accessibility varies by building, and some staircases are unavoidable. Check the website for details.) The Post Hospital tour, set for May 31, will be one hour and cost $35.
Officers Row has that name because the homes built here in the mid- and late 1800s housed or hosted U.S. Army commanders, including some who went on to worldwide fame.
The Marshall House was home to George Marshall from 1936 to 1938, before he became the leader of Allied forces during World War II and later U.S. secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize laureate credited with the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe.
The house is a standout example of what’s called Queen Anne architecture: asymmetrical, steep, highly ornamented, a little eccentric. Most of the house has been restored to reflect its original 1886 construction, but the museumlike library and office reflect Marshall’s time here in the late 1930s.
Holly Chamberlain, director of historic preservation at The Historic Trust, will give the introductory talk at the Marshall House.
The oldest building on Officers Row is the 1849 Grant House, built in a more classical, symmetrical, French-colonial style. It was originally a log cabin intended to be the commanding officer’s residence. (You can catch glimpses of the original log walls on Saturday’s tour.) Within a few years, the residence was remodeled as an officers’ club, compete with the spacious double-wraparound verandas it still has today.
Despite the house’s name, base quartermaster Ulysses S. Grant lived downhill near the fort in the 1850s, not here. It was during a triumphal 1879 visit — as decisive Civil War general and former U.S. president — when the house was renamed in his honor.
President Grant will tell you all about that in person during the tour. He’ll be giving the introductory talk at the Grant House. Inside his costume will be local historian and author Jeff Davis.
Many local folks likely don’t realize that the O.O. Howard House shares its namesake with Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C., that was launched in the wake of the Civil War. Among its founders was Oliver Otis Howard, a storied Civil War general and Indian fighter who lived here with his family briefly (circa 1879-80). Howard was a white man from Maine who championed education and teacher training for former slaves. Historic Trust board member Julie Garver will give the talk at the Howard House.
“Looking at it now, it’s not so super-fancy,” Lentz said. “But it was known at the time as the most elegant residence in Vancouver.”
Like much of the Fort Vancouver historic site, the buildings on Officers Row were owned and operated for well over a century by the U.S. Army, which eventually declared them surplus. In the 1980s, Lentz recalled, there was a push by city leaders like city councilor and historian Pat Jollota to transfer the buildings to city ownership — so their historical value could be preserved — rather than selling them off to private buyers.
Eventually, the city bought the whole swath of Officers Row, including all 21 of its historic buildings, for the sum of $1. After that, Vancouver was obliged to spend $10.9 million renovating and restoring them.
“The good news is, we got the Row. The bad news is, we got the Row,” Jollota famously said of the great real estate deal and its considerable expense.
Today, Officers Row is owned by the city and managed by The Historic Trust. Most of its buildings are leased to private businesses and residences. The Grant House has been the site of several restaurants, most recently Willful Wine, and there are walk-in tours of the Marshall House. The Trust also manages the city-owned West Vancouver Barracks and owns the Providence Academy building.
The rest of the Fort Vancouver site — including the parade grounds, visitor center, east and south barracks buildings, Pearson Air Museum and the reconstructed fort — is owned and operated by the National Park Service.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct Temple Lentz’s title.
