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Snohomish
 Living in a picture-perfect historic home
By MARK HIGGINS
Ernie and Sharilyn Schmidt live in the most photographed house in Snohomish. It is not unusual for the couple to look out the windows of their 1887 Queen Anne-style home only to find a camera-toting tourist peering back. It is hard not to stare in awe at the Schmidt house, with its shingled tower rising three stories into the sky. It looks like a doll house, perfect in proportion and trimmed in ornate molding, fancy shingles and gingerbread trim that took Ernie Schmidt years to assemble and paint. "I've reworked every square foot of it," Schmidt says of his home. The Schmidt house is part of a walking tour through one of Snohomish's oldest historic neighborhoods and downtown district. Seventy-five buildings are on the tour, enough to easily fill an afternoon visit. Founded in 1859 -- the same decade that the first white settlers landed at Alki Point in Seattle -- Snohomish has a collection of some of the state's finest historic homes. Ernie Schmidt said he bought his dream house in 1977 for $52,000, which included a second lot. After almost 20 years of restoration work, Schmidt decided to list the 2,500-square-foot house for sale. Priced at $270,000, the house attracted no serious offers, though several parties were interested. Schmidt said he has considered using the house as a bed-and-breakfast or perhaps renting it out for awhile, but "only to the right people." The reason for Schmidt's caution is clear once inside the home. Its walls and 11-1/2-foot-high ceilings have been meticulously replastered. Ornate lighting fixtures have been added throughout. The luscious woodwork was carefully removed from a old hotel in Walla Walla that was about to be torn down, Schmidt said. Though the Schmidt house at 223 Avenue A is spectacular, many of the neighboring houses are equally fine. Maps of the walking tour can be obtained at the Snohomish Chamber of Commerce, in the Waltz Building on Avenue B between First and Second streets.
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