Coeur d’Alene

Could that be Huckleberry Finn hiding in the willows by the river, and is that Becky Thatcher strolling down Sherman Avenue . . . the girl in the lacy summer dress?

A warm breeze blows off the lake, and all across town residents rock contentedly in swings on screened porches.

It’s a scene that’s as nostalgic as an old Saturday Evening Post cover--unhurried and gentle, all of which makes Coeur d’Alene one of America’s special hideaways: down home, not terribly sophisticated, even a little romantic.

A glass of wine, a pretty girl and a soft summer day.

A national magazine named Coeur d’Alene among the nation’s 10 most livable towns, and National Geographic repeatedly describes the lake for which it is named as one of the five most beautiful on earth.

Coeur d’Alene is an unpretentious town of 25,000 that’s given over to simple pleasures and trust. There are residents who never bother locking their doors. Others leave keys in their car ignitions. Even downtown.

Coeur d’Alene is as laid-back as a country fair. Visitors ride through town in horse-drawn carriages, and the Wickiup on Sherman Avenue sells postage stamp-size paintings, Indian jewelry and the carvings of a Montana craftsman. In summertime, proprietress Dodie McNeel sponsors art cruises on the lake with a champagne brunch.

Summer means Hula-Hoops, soap bubbles and sand castle contests, youth ballet, hot dogs and hamburgers, corn on the cob and hand-cranked ice cream served in the park.

Crowds line up at Hudson’s for the “best hamburgers in the world.” To prove a point, there’s almost always a line at the door. Others gather at Roger’s old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Or at Cricket’s, which is a blast, what with vintage cars poking out of the walls, a clawfoot tub brimming with salads and a drink called the Royal Flush that’s served in a toilet-shaped mug.

Other libations are taken at T. W. Fisher’s English-style Brewpub, where customers play darts, cribbage and backgammon. T. W. won himself a gold medal for the best pale ale at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver last year. Besides brew, the pub turns out German sausage on a bun and T. W.’s own special Cheddarwurst, along with pizza and lasagna.

Coeur d’Alene is a flashback to the ‘20s, where on the Fourth of July vintage fire trucks parade down Sherman Avenue alongside Model-T flivvers and flags fly from porches throughout town. Later, as snow falls, Christmas is a magical moment that brings to life near-forgotten scenes from old-fashioned holiday cards.

With more than 100 other lakes and rivers nearby, vacationers go boating and canoeing, rafting and fishing. They hike up Tubbs Hill and explore old mines and ghost towns, and stroll around the world’s longest floating boardwalk at Coeur d’Alene’s striking new $60-million hotel, with picture windows that frame the lake, a marina and forests that stretch to infinity.

Only 32 miles east of Spokane, Coeur d’Alene is a lifetime removed from the fast lane. One visitor called it America’s Switzerland. John Steinbeck was moved by its friendliness.

Summer means art-on-the-green and concerts in the park and sunset cruises on the 110-mile lake, while the town’s mayor and his six-piece band play Dixieland and smoothies from the ‘40s on a floating pier outside the new hotel.

The friendliness of Coeur d’Alene is infectious, extending to Winifred McFarland and Steven Gregory, a husband-and-wife team who fled Hollywood to settle in Coeur d’Alene, where they operate a five-room bed and breakfast with their daughter, Carol.

Entering Gregory’s McFarland House at 6th and Foster is like stepping back 100 years to an unhurried time when four-posters were in fashion and lace curtains fluttered at the windows and the notes of a vintage piano echoed through the house.

McFarland House has been refurbished with impeccable good taste, from its original hardwood floors to the country paper that graces its walls. Guests gather at a dining table that was delivered around the Horn, and relax in a glassed-in porch with white wicker furniture and views of aspen trees and neatly trimmed lawn, while the lazy buzzing of bees is carried by a summer wind.

Red-haired Winifred, an ex-actress and one-time protege of Rudolph Bing of the Metropolitan Opera Company, makes McFarland House special, as does silver-haired Steven, whose appearances on stage and in films prepared him for the role that he plays of gentle host at this genuinely friendly B&B--far; from the footlights of New York City and the stardust of Hollywood.

The couple came to Idaho in search of a ranch and found peace instead, ministering to stressed-out guests at McFarland House, where a gourmet breakfast changes daily, season to season.

The coffee pot is hot ‘round the clock. The cookie jar is always full. And should guests arrive at Thanksgiving or Christmas, the proprietors invite them to a family dinner for which there is no charge.

Victorian charm also pervades Blackwell House, a B&B; operated by Kathleen Sims and Elizabeth Hoy. A mail-order minister from Montana, Hoy officiates at weddings inside the old three-story home and frequently in the garden.

With its eight guest rooms and five baths, Blackwell House shines, floor to ceiling. Guests relax in wingback chairs and rockers, while fireplaces blaze on chilly nights and melodies echo from the music room.

In all of the northern Idaho Panhandle, though, not another shelter matches the splendor of the handsome new resort created by Duane Hagadone and Jerry Jaeger, which they call Coeur d’Alene, A Resort On The Lake.

Rising 18 stories above the lake, the hotel is a high-rise of exceptional grace. With its steeply pitched copper roofs and turrets, it could be mistaken from afar for a castle. It is, indeed, the centerpiece around which tourism revolves in Coeur d’Alene.

At the grand opening the governor called it the “biggest happening in Idaho since Averill Harriman built Sun Valley.” And it is. What with 338 rooms and suites, four swimming pools, bowling, indoor golf, racquetball and a gymnasium, the resort reigns as the queen of the Pacific Northwest.

One suite features a glass-bottom swimming pool and a Jacuzzi suspended 18 stories above the lake. A private dining room on the seventh floor is also suspended over water. Pretty girls in picture hats serve guests in Beverly’s, the hotel’s premier restaurant. Other patrons gather at a lobby-level restaurant, the Dockside, and drinks are dispensed in a quiet corner called Whispers.

The Coeur d’Alene is caring and friendly and the service is without fault. Newspapers wrapped in cellophane are delivered to rooms along with boxes of miniature chocolates. With its friendly staff, the Coeur d’Alene rates--at the very least--five stars.

Hundreds of Trees

In addition to the hotel, Hagadone and Jaeger created a park, trucking in hundreds of flowering pear trees, maples, plants and shrubs, along with 14,000 geraniums.

This is the beginning. Hagadone, who piled up a fortune with a chain of newspapers, a radio station and real estate, is preparing a second hotel on the other side of Tubbs Hill, along with an 18-hole championship golf course with the world’s first floating green.

Hagadone got the idea while watching logs being floated on the lake. After teeing off from shore, players will be delivered by boat to the green. Hooked to cables and a computer, the green will move as well as float.

For a man in his 50s who’s worth a fortune, Hagadone has roamed little; the office he occupies is barely three blocks from the home where he was born. His next venture is a ski resort featuring the longest gondola in the nation, along with a Bavarian restaurant and beer garden, a complex that will be served by shuttle bus from his and Jaeger’s splendid hotel.

Cottonwood Canopies

Boaters cruise Coeur d’Alene, tying up at Carlin Bay for beer, soft drinks and sandwiches served at picnic tables beneath leafy cottonwoods where Huck Finn-types leap into the lake in a scene that would bring a smile to Samuel Clemens himself.

The scene is repeated at Sandpoint, a village outside Coeur d’Alene on Lake Pend Oreille. At the Garden Restaurant, couples with stardust in their eyes hold hands and sip wine.

The Garden Restaurant was created for romantics, with a tree-shaded deck overlooking the lake. Potted plants and other blooms provide the fragrance for a romantic summer afternoon. The restaurant is fetching at night as well, when lights strung among the trees cast their glow.

Proprietor Richard Hollars, who got to Sandpoint by way of Cape Cod, Carmel and Aspen, describes the scene as “one of life’s simple pleasures.” On chilly evenings, guests retire inside the old frame home, relaxing on sofas and in wingback chairs before a fireplace, listening to love songs played on a 125-year-old piano by Philippe Tomas Archangelo Raphael. No, not of Rome or Naples. New Jersey. Sorry.

Holiday Lights

Coeur d’Alene is more than a summer place. In winter, skiers make pilgrimages to nearby resorts, and Christmas touches everyone. On the first Friday following Thanksgiving, precisely at 5 p.m., residents throughout Coeur d’Alene switch on their Christmas lights in a simultaneous and moving moment of holiday magic.

Hagadone and Jaeger string 100,000 lights in the trees surrounding their hotel, while animated figures add to the wonder of the season.

At the mall, bits of paper bearing the names of the needy are pinned to another tree. And at McFarland House, Winifred McFarland invites guests--along with lonely souls whom she welcomes in out of the cold--to trim her tree.

Thousands of poinsettias grace Coeur d’Alene’s resort hotel, where an immense wreath is displayed from an outer wall. Along Sherman Avenue, Victorian lamps glow and children join a parade with lighted candles.

During Christmas, carolers stroll the streets, home-baked breads and candy are sold and residents deliver handmade Christmas ornaments to a festival of the trees.

The Town Santa

By Christmas Day, 65-year-old Tom Smith, a retired IT&T; employee, is weary. From the night the lights are lit in November, he plays the role of Santa Claus, traveling in a horse-drawn surrey. Each year Smith places an ad in the newspaper, inviting the children of Coeur d’Alene to join him for a holiday breakfast.

“I am Santa Claus!” says Smith, and there are those who sincerely believe he is, especially on Christmas Eve, when he slips house to house, delivering gifts to youngsters. Particularly the needy.

One year a child asked for her father, who’d left home. Smith placed still another ad in the newspaper and on Christmas Eve when he knocked, the father answered the door.

The silver-haired Santa smiles. “A lot of miracles occur in this town.” Looking up at the summer sky, he takes a deep breath. “When you wake up in Coeur d’Alene you say to yourself, ‘It’s so beautiful! I’m glad to be alive--so glad to be alive.’ ”

For reservations:

--The Coeur d’Alene, A Resort On The Lake, Ida. 83814-1941. Telephone toll-free (800) 826-2390 (outside Idaho) or (800) 841-5868 (inside the state). This is the new resort and hotel operated by Duane Hagadone and Jerry Jaeger. Complete convention facilities. Rates: $79.50/$169.50. Less during spring, fall, winter.

--Gregory’s McFarland House, 601 Foster Ave., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Call (208) 667-1232. Rates: $50/$65.

--The Blackwell House, 820 Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Telephone (208) 664-0656. Rates: $45/$85.

For a list of other accommodations: Write to the Coeur d’Alene Visitors & Convention Bureau, P.O. Box 1088, Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814, or call toll-free (800) 232-4968 or (208) 664-0587. Additional listings are available from the Coeur d’Alene Lodging Assn. Call (208) 667-1232.

Sightseeing/Shopping/Dining:

--For general information, write to the Hagadone Hospitality Co., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Telephone (208) 667-3431.

--Wiggett Antique Mall, 119 N. 4th St., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Telephone (208) 664-1524.

--Gifts and Gourmet of the Northwest, 115 N. 2nd St., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Telephone (208) 667-1350.

--Skiing, mountain biking, picnics, arts and crafts fairs at Schweitzer Mountain Resort, P.O. Box 815, Sandpoint, Ida. 83864. Call (208) 263-9555.

--The Garden Restaurant, 15 E. Lake St., Sandpoint, Ida. Call (208) 263-5187.

--Silverwood Theme Park, Athol, Ida. 83801. Features a narrow-gauge railroad, horse-drawn stagecoach, saloon, Victorian cafe, an old-time movie theater and an old-fashioned general store. Telephone (208) 772-0513.

--Silverwood RV Park, Athol, Ida. Call (208) 772-0515.

--Greyhound Racing, Coeur d’Alene Greyhound Park, P.O. Box 880, Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Telephone (208) 773-0545.

--The Wickiup Gallery, 211 Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene, Ida. 83814. Call (208) 667-1956.

--Reflections, Marie’s Boutique, Drummond Art Gallery (three attractive shops at The Coeur d’Alene, A Resort On The Lake).

--Enaville Resort, home of the 100-year-old Snakepit Restaurant (steaks, seafood, sandwiches, Rocky Mountain oysters, Alaskan crab, Idaho trout) on the Coeur d’Alene River, Shoshone, Ida., a short drive from Coeur d’Alene. Telephone (208) 682-3453.

--Sierra Silver Mine Tour, P.O. Box 712, Wallace, Ida. 83873. Telephone (208) 752-5151.

--Farragut State Park & Lake, Pend Oreille (home of world-record kamloops rainbow trout), 13400 Ranger Road, Athol, Ida. 83801. Call (208) 683-2425.