Asahel Bush House - Salem, Oregon - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

This 12-room house is considered the finest example of high Italianate architecture in Salem. It was home built in 1877-78 for Asahel Bush, a pioneer banker and published of the Oregon Statesman (now Statesman Journal) newspaper.

The house was designed by Wilbur F. Boothby, who built the old Marion County Courthouse. The house design is reportedly based on a fashionable house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Asahel's late wife Eugenia, who died at age 30 in 1863, had attended the Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem. Ashel and his four children moved into the house and lived much of their lives there, his son Asahel Nesmith Bush returning home during his last days until he passed at age 95 in 1952. The City of Salem acquired the house in 1953 and turned it into a museum. The 100-acre property had already been deeded to the city as a park (Bush's Pasture Park) - a section of it was later sold to Willamette University for building a sports stadium.

The house includes a sitting room, library, master bedroom, parlor, dining room and kitchen in the downstairs. A walnut and mahogany staircase leads from the entrance to the bedrooms, sitting rooms and servants' quarters upstairs. Ten of the twelve room sin the house have marble fireplaces. Each bedroom has its own lavatory, with marble basins.

Today the house is operated by the Salem Art Association as a museum.

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Public/Private: Public Tours Available?: Yes Year Built: 1877-78 Web Address: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/19/2015 WalksfarTX visited it