Mansion may not be lived in

BOISE – Two of three candidates to be Idaho’s next governor wouldn’t live in the mansion donated by billionaire J.R. Simplot in December 2004, extending a debate that’s been a fixture of Idaho politics for two decades.

Since 1987, when Gov. Cecil Andrus refused to live in the then-governor’s house, Idaho has been plagued by what to do about its head honcho’s living quarters.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has added to the discussion this year with his $2 million plan to buy land adjacent to the Simplot mansion to shield it from development.

Jerry Brady, the lone Democratic candidate, calls the house on a prominent Boise overlook “fit for a medieval king.”

Dan Adamson, a Chubbock businessman and Republican candidate, would turn it into a bed and breakfast, with the proceeds benefiting Idaho education.

U.S. Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, the leader in campaign fundraising at $760,000, won’t say where he’d live if elected, though he’s expanding his home in Star.

The continuing drama is a sign of the uneasiness libertarian Idaho has with the notion of a home that some say sets the governor apart from the people he or she represents. It’s a common theme across America, where tussles over governor’s mansions reveal a citizenry that’s still defining its relationship to power. “This is a down-to-earth, blue-collar state, and there are a lot of states like that,” said Richard Moore, a retired political science professor at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston. “Just calling it a mansion sets off alarm bells for a lot of people.”

Until Simplot made the $2.1 million house donation, Idaho was one of just six states, including California and Vermont, without an official governor’s residence.

Even so, Idaho’s capital is dotted with homes once used by former governors, including the north Boise bungalow the state bought in 1947.

By the late 1980s, however, that home had fallen into disrepair, and Idaho sold it in 1990 after Andrus opted to stay in his own residence.

Plans to build a $950,000 home on 15 acres northeast of the Statehouse collapsed in 1994 when Democrat Larry EchoHawk and Phil Batt, the eventual Republican winner, called the effort a waste of money.

Simplot’s donation of the 7,400-square-foot home, which cost $18,000 in taxes in 2004, was meant to end the rancor. A $3 million effort to renovate and expand the house to 12,000 square feet has been left in private hands, in order to deflect criticism. By Dec. 23, the group had raised $235,000. On Friday, it declined to give current fundraising totals.

Even so, the debate continues.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” said Batt, in an interview with the Associated Press on Friday. “I don’t think (discussion of the Simplot home) will end, because of the very unique nature of it.”

Brady, making another run after losing to Kempthorne in 2002, said he’d live in his two-bedroom Boise townhouse if he wins next November.

“I don’t want to be ungracious – it’s been given to us very generously,” Brady said, adding he’d use the Simplot place for public events. But “it’s way above everybody else. You look down on the people. It doesn’t strike me as the right house for a governor in a democracy.”

Adamson sees it as a potential moneymaker for schoolchildren.

“I’ve seriously thought about having state parent-teacher associations come in and open a bed and breakfast,” he said. “I could show them how to make a ton of money doing it. I might stay there, but I wouldn’t live there.”

Otter is guarded, saying it would be “presumptuous” to comment before he’s even contested the May primary against Adamson. Otter’s ex-wife, Gay Simplot, is the daughter of J.R. Simplot.

At his 70-acre ranch in Star, 18 miles west of Boise, Otter is expanding his home to include additional living quarters, fitness facilities and a new barn.

Members of the Governor’s Housing Committee, the five-member panel that oversees the $1.5 million fund that pays Kempthorne’s current $4,500 housing allowance, say the Simplot mansion would be used for official events even if the next governor opts to live somewhere else.

Oklahoma was criticized for spending $200,000 in taxpayer money on a $1 million governor’s residence revamp. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee drew fire for how he spent money dedicated to running the state’s official residence. In 2002, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura shuttered the governor’s mansion after lawmakers cut nearly $400,000 from his office’s budget.

And the debate in Idaho mirrors the 1958 furor that swirled around the Colorado governor’s mansion in Denver.

Then, officials initially rejected the Boettcher family’s gift of a 1908 Georgian Revival home, including a Waterford crystal chandelier from President Grant’s White House and Italian Carrara marble statuary, on concern it was “too elegant,” said Edna Pelzmann, visitor services manager for the Colorado State Capitol.

They eventually relented.