Dodd House sold in just four days

A hot real estate market combined with a sterling historic provenance allowed the landmark Dodd House to sell in just four days.

Jerry and Beverlee Numbers spent years restoring the 1913 Craftsman bungalow at 603 S. Arthur St., even erecting a monument and plaque in the front yard identifying the house’s early ownership by the Spokane woman who started Father’s Day.

The Numberses had been living there since 2010 but decided it was time to move on.

The house was built for John Dodd and his wife, Sonora Smart Dodd. In 1910, she petitioned successfully for the instatement of Father’s Day in honor of her own father.

Today, travelers from around the world visit the house. In the past, the house has been opened to local residents.

“We have mixed feelings about selling,” Jerry Numbers said.

Beverlee Numbers said that of all the places they have lived, the Dodd House “is probably the most pleasant.”

They listed the house on a Friday in early July.

The following Tuesday, an active-duty airman at Fairchild Air Force Base agreed to pay $220,000 for the home. Closure of the deal is pending.

He told the Numbers he would maintain the historic integrity and was OK with having occasional visitors wander by.

Jerry Numbers said they priced the home for a quick sale, and that it might have commanded a higher price with a little bit of patience.

“It’s a cool house,” he said.

Jerry Numbers is a former schoolteacher. Beverlee Numbers served on the City Council in the early 1990s.

They bought the Dodd House in 1972 as part of a group of rentals they ran.

The couple plan to move to another of their properties one door to the south on Arthur Street.

Restoration of the Dodd House was underway in 2008 when the Numberses had the home placed on the Spokane Register of Historic Places.

Two years later, it entered the state and national historic registers.

“The Dodd House is a fine depiction of the Craftsman style …,” according to the historic register nomination.

During restoration, the Numberses repaired rafter tails and knee braces coming from the roof, redid flooring, removed arched passages in the dining room, fixed the large front porch, repaired the garage and added brick paving.

The hallway has maple flooring that Jerry Numbers salvaged from the old Edison School that was demolished in 1980, he said.

The house still has its original windows and a Craftsman porch light next to the front door.

“We love that front porch,” Jerry Numbers said.

The house has three bedrooms and a partially finished basement. It is spacious at 1,400 square feet on the main level.

Sonora Dodd in 1945 converted the upstairs into an apartment.

The story of Sonora Dodd and Father’s Day traces back to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 when Dodd, then 28, wondered why there wasn’t a similar day for dads.

“I began thinking of my mother, who passed away in 1898 while I was yet a child. My thoughts naturally turned to my father, William J. Smart, who was left with the responsibility of rearing six children,” Dodd said later in a news article.

With the help of Spokane’s clergy and the YMCA, the first Father’s Day took place June 19, 1910.

Sonora Dodd’s father died in the home some years later while living with the Dodds, Jerry Numbers said.

In subsequent years, Sonora Dodd became internationally famous.

“Throughout her life, Sonora Dodd received many praises and accolades, honors and gifts, and was featured as the nationally recognized founder of Father’s Day in hundreds of thousands of stories and photographs printed in newspapers throughout the country,” preservation consultant Linda Yeomans wrote in the house’s historic nomination.

As a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute, Dodd became an artist and poet. She was known for her ceramic dolls of Native Americans. She was also very active in community affairs.

She was one of the founders of the Ball and Dodd Funeral Home.

She died at age 96 in 1978.