The Hoover-Minthorn House in Newberg, Oregon, was home to Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States, from 1885-1889. It is now preserved as a memorial to him and to the lifestyle of the Quaker community which shaped his boyhood experience. It has been fully restored to its original condition c. 1881, and contains many of its original furnishings, as well as memorabilia of the period and items belonging to President Hoover.
The house was built in 1881, by Jesse Edwards, the Quaker founder of Newberg, and is the oldest standing home in the original Newberg township. Dr. Henry John Minthorn, uncle and foster-father of Herbert Hoover, bought it in 1884, the year he was appointed superintendent of Friends Pacific Academy (forerunner of today's George Fox University). Shortly before coming to Newberg, the Minthorns lost their only son. Once they were settled in to their new community they requested that Herbert, orphaned two years prior, be sent to Oregon to live with them as their foster son. He joined the family in 1885, at the age of eleven, and stayed with them until he left to attend Stanford University in 1892.
The small home is a clear expression of the local Victorian Quaker preference for simple, elegant, and spare architecture, paired with thoughtful design. Architecturally, it is very much an 1882 Willamette Valley vernacular house-an expression of rural taste, the less sophisticated country cousin of the grander houses being built in Portland. In overall design, the house is Italianate. Its eclecticism comes from other features--an example of fashion in the midst of change.
The furniture in President Hoover's bedroom is the actual set he used as a boy, and many of the furnishings throughout the house belonged to the Minthorn family during their time in Newberg. Other furnishings in the house were gathered from homes in the countryside around Newberg and from the Friends Pacific Academy.
