By Robert Lucke
At the time this home was being built for Havre pioneers H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack, they were living at the Stone House, 320 First Ave. The new Georgian Revival house was to be Margaret Clack's dream house. Unfortunately when building started, the Clack children came down with chicken pox and Margaret Clack was quarantined with them as the house was being built.
She dreaded that time as she was convinced that without her supervision, H. Earl Clack and architect Frank Bossuot would not get it right. The morning the quarantine was lifted, she ran all the way to the new house at 532 Second Ave. and was surprised to see that the windows and stairways and sun porches were all where she had wanted them.
Built in 1927, the house was to be the last Havre home for H. Earl Clack, who was early on in the gasoline business throughout several states along with grain elevators and house construction. The family also owned a large hardware store in Havre.
The first floor of the original house included two vestibules, a large living room, dining room, kitchen and sun porch. Later, a north wing was added which included a main floor bedroom and bathroom.
The second floor has three large bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, sewing room and sleeping porch.
Robert and Marjorie Sizemore bought the house from the Clack family in 1981 and have owned it since. Marjorie Sizemore used the house for her real estate business for eight years. During that time she worked on the house, preserving it as much as possible and gradually growing to love it more and more.
"I love the floor plan," she said, "the way you come into a small vestibule and then into a large vestibule that has work areas of the house on one side and that big living room on the other side. And I love the way the stairs go up from there and that there is another vestibule at the top of the stairs. It's all sort of mysterious and very beautiful."
"To me it is my dream house," Marjorie Sizemore added. "I have gone into many other historical houses but none are the same as this plan. None are as beautiful. You know it is not Victorian like so many. It is Georgian, like a plantation house."
Of all the gracious rooms in the house, of course she has her favorite.
"That would be the living room," she said. "The way the sun comes into the room in the mornings and then when I open the French doors to the sun porch, the light is just wonderful."
For many old-timers, a favorite room would be the south sun porch with its brick fireplace. Mrs. Clack had it decorated with Navajo rugs and that was the special place for the family Christmas tree.
But for many, the whole house is just something very special to Havre and the Hi-Line. Marjorie Sizemore summed it up for many.
"I just have never quit loving that old house," she said.
Reference material for this story came from "Historical Homes of North Central Montana" by Robert Lucke and "Havre's Historic Homes" by Jon Axline.
