Adaptive Reuse at City Hall

 

If you have been an occasional visitor to Portland City Council meetings at City Hall, here’s a friendly tip:  Your next trip will NOT be déjà vu all over again.

 The dais where five city commissioners had ruled since 1913 – some of them giants of local lore – has been reconfigured so the new 12-member council can squeeze into half of a big circle that dominates the chamber.  City staffers and people who offer testimony sit on the front half.

In all, the big circle reduces the number of seats on the main floor, which forces other folks into the balcony, where sound levels are weak from speakers who don’t cuddle up to their microphones.

 Your correspondent spent several years attending council sessions, first in the 1970s when the council sat against the curved east wall, and later in the 1990s when a renovation backed the council against the flat west wall.  The new big circle backs up again to the east.

Offices inside the landmark 1895 City Hall have been substantially reshuffled.  Fortunately, many of the historic internal elements of marble floors, oaken woodwork and glorious stairways have been preserved.  It is one of the best buildings by Whidden & Lewis who comprised Portland's most prestigious architectural firm of the era.

The occasion of my visit was a January 16 hearing at which the council unanimously agreed to allow destruction of a 1908 bungalow at 118 SW Porter St. in the South Portland Historic District.  The outcome was a foregone conclusion, since the site will become part of a new home for Ukandu, a non-profit agency that provides counseling for childhood cancer patients and for their families.

 Ninety minutes of testimony from cancer patients and their families proved compelling to the City Council, same as it had for the Portland Landmarks Commission in an earlier hearing.  While the landmarks body generally tries to protect historic properties, it agreed that the public value of the proposed change was more significant than the historic value of the small residence that had been converted to offices 40 years ago.

 The case of the Porter Street bungalow was so easy, observers couldn’t come away with any real perspective about how this new City Council feels about historic preservation.  We shall learn more someday when a more important historic building comes under threat.

The hearing did allow a few observations.  The councilors listened carefully.  Good questions were asked.  If there are dummies aboard this vessel, it is not yet apparent.

Whether any of them become giants of this cramped new dais…time will tell.

----Fred Leeson

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Looking Back -- and Ahead

von Homeyer House Restoration

 

Portland’s 2024 historic preservation victories ranged from as small as a single house in the Alameda neighborhood to thoughtful renovation of the sprawling Benson Polytechnic High School campus.

Other success stories included completion of the Literary Arts building in the East Portland/Grand Avenue Historic District and major plans for upgrading Veterans Memorial Coliseum and creating a memorial for Chinese buried in a corner of Lone Fir Cemetery during a nasty era of ethnic discrimination.

The most novel project of the year was the 98-year-old single house in Alameda, where a couple living nearby bought the badly run-down von Homeyer residence and cleaned a several decades of “stuff” that had stuffed into it by two elderly brothers who spent their whole lives there.

 Eschewing any dream of potential profit, Michael and Jaylen Schmitt set to work clearing out the mess – including seven junked cars – and planned a restoration that included reopening the front porch that had been enclosed since 1959.

 The Schmitt’s undertook the expensive project because they feared the lot would be sold for development of a McMansion that wouldn’t fit the historic character of the surrounding blocks.  When finished early next year, the couple’s investment likely will exceed $1 million.  Whether they can break even on their heroic challenge of neighborhood preservation will depend on whimsies of the real estate market.

 

Celebration at Benson High School

Meanwhile, Portland Public Schools finished its sixth high school renovation with the re-opening of Benson High School.  The two-year project revamped much of the campus that had a number of seemingly odd additions plopped down since the original building was finished in 1916.

 Fortunately, many original architectural elements were tastefully restored, including the entry foyer, auditorium, original gymnasium and the attractive brick primary façade.  The improvements are intended to give the high school several more decades of important technical education.

Benson Foyer

Looking ahead, the Portland School Board faces an important decision about demolishing Cleveland High School in favor of a whole new building or renovating the historic building instead.  The board’s earlier decision favoring demolition could still be changed, given that the district in 2025 will be asking voters for additional bond money. 

While Cleveland’s interior is seriously outdated, the success at Benson and earlier projects at Franklin, Roosevelt and Grant High Schools could help the district change its mind about demolishing Cleveland if concludes that renovation is an easier sell heading into the bond election.

 In other looming preservation matters, 2025 should see the completion of renovations at the historic Albina and North Portland branch libraries, and restoration of much- loved D.P. Thompson elk statue and fountain in downtown Portland.

And speaking of fountains, at some point the city’s new political leadership needs to make a conclusive decision about restoring the Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt statues in the South Park Blocks. Discussion among the new 12-member City Council could give us a significant “read” on their collective interest in historic preservation

---Fred Leeson

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Crash Landing for the Airplane Factory?

 Demolition likely is next for the Northeast Portland building known colloquially as the “airplane factory” now that two failed preservation plans led to a foreclosure auction this month.

Given that starting bids for the three-story building begin at $225,000, it is apparent that the only value left probably is in the land, not in the 107-year old building.

In 1917 and 19182, the building erected by Oregon Home Builders Inc. was used to manufacture fabric-shrouded spruce airplane wings for U.S. military bi-planes used in World War I.  After the war, the industrial building that included a railroad spur off the Union Pacific main line in Sullivan’s Gulch housed a long list of enterprises.

The last, and longest-lived, was Gordon’s Fireplace Shop that resided in the building from 1990 to the company’s closure in 2016.  Tarlow’s Furniture Co. used the building from the late 1950s to approximately 1980.  More obscure earlier tenants included the Pacific Phonograph Manufacturing Co., Art Erickson Furniture Co. and Portland Window Décor.

Gordon’s sold the building in for $2.7 million 2017 to InterUrban Development, a Seattle firm that concentrates on restoring historic buildings.  InterUrban planned to add retail storefronts at the ground level and creative office spaces on the two floors above.

Alas, the COVID pandemic killed that plan, given that “creative” workers preferred to stay home rather than rent offices.  InterUrban then changed its plans to add housing on the upper floors, instead.

For whatever reasons, InterUrban and Portland building officials could never agree on renovation details.  Meanwhile, vagrants invaded the inside of the building and graffiti painters took great joy in smothering the exterior with spray paint.  The collapse of the planning led to the foreclosure order and auction.

The building is zoned mixed-used commercial, which allows for buildings of up to six or seven stories containing retail, residences, offices or “low impact” manufacturing.   The site’s location next to railroad tracks, a freeway and busy arterials of NE Broadway and 33rd Avenue could make it difficult to find successful uses.

The demolition of any historic building is significant for environmental reasons related to refuse disposal and energy consumption involved in new materials and construction.  While a new building might add to the quality of the neighborhood, it also might detract in ways no one expected.

Preservation is never an easy accomplishment.  Planning and design and financing are always potential barriers.  Unexpected physical problems often arise when digging deeply into the bowels of old buildings.  In this case, COVID and damages done by hooligans were either brand new or unusual challenges. 

 If there are lessons that can be learned from the airplane factory experience, the preservation world should pay attention.

-----Fred Leeson

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A Grand Addition on Grand Avenue

 

Opening of the new Literary Arts location in Southeast Portland was a home run for the non-profit association as well as for historic preservation and the little-known East Portland-Grand Avenue National Historic District.

The building at 716 SE Grand Avenue, now recognized as a “streetcar commercial” architecture, opened in 1904 as Strowbridge Hardware.  It held a few other businesses over the years before its façade was completely shrouded by a fiberglass skin to become a furniture store.

 Fortunately, the fiberglass skin did little to harm the original brick face that laid hidden for more than 40 years until its removal in 2018.  Literary Arts, an organization that promotes books and authors, bought the building in 2022 and began the gradual makeover we see today.

It is a pleasure to enter the long-vacant building today.  Bora Architects and Interiors, working with a fee, opened up the two-story building and laid bare its timber intestines.  The ground floor is primarily a sales space for an inventory of 12,000 books.  A loft above provides classroom space and room for small author-related events.  Plans call for the addition of a coffee shop sometime down the road.

Bora left intact a few interesting historical element, including the inlaid tile at the entrance dating to when the store was operated by W.P. Fuller Paints.

In its day, the original brick façade was typical for an early-20th Century storefront.  Today it joins a handful of other historic commercial buildings on the same block, indicating that Grand Avenue was indeed the “Main Street” of old city of East Portland.  East Portland merged with the City of Portland in 1891.

 The attractive pedestrian addition of Literary Arts to Grand Avenue is a sign of renewed interest in the area.  Negotiations are in progress for the sale of another vacant historic building directly across the street, and a non-profit housing agency is working on plans for upgrading the old Clifford Hotel – now a residence for low-income tenants – around the corner on SE Morrison Street.

The Architectural Heritage Center also sits just across the street from Literary Arts on Grand Avenue.  The two non-profit agencies can make an attractive intellectual magnet for people interested in books and Portland’s architectural history.

When "modern" was a mistake (Portland Historic Inventory)

---- Fred Leeson

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Bye, Bye Bungalow

 

(Gensler image)

Portland’s new 12-member City Council will have its first adventure in historic preservation when it will be asked in January to allow demolition of a small bungalow dating to 1908 at 118 S.W. Porter St. in the South Portland Historic District.

Alas, the hearing won’t tell us much the council’s attitudes about preservation since a decision favoring demolition is essentially assured. Ukandu, an agency that provides counseling, recreation and social services to families with children suffering from cancer, plans to build a two-story addition on the site.

 A four-member panel of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission took the unusual step of supporting the demolition proposal at a hearing Nov. 25.  All four agreed that the valuable service provided by Ukandu outweighed preservation of what one called “a ho-hum bungalow” offering little architectural or historic significance the South Portland district.

 The landmarks commission has a history of trying to protect contributing elements in historic district from demolition.  The bungalow proved to be an exception. 

“Losing it is a cut,” said Andrew Smith, commission chairman.  “Districts die by a thousand cuts.”  But he agreed with others that the merit of Ukandu’s proposal outweighed the significance of the 936-square foot bungalow.

In a detailed report to the landmarks body, Gensler/Portland, an architecture firm working on Ukandu’s expansion, said cost for moving the bungalow to a new location would cost about $1 million.  In addition, the small structure that has been used as an office for the past 40 years is not in good condition and no nearby site is available.

Proposed brick building on right would replace bungalow (Gensler)

The new building replacing it would be connected to u existing location at 3015 S.W. First Ave.  A final design for the brick-faced addition will be offered for Landmarks Commission consideration for at some future date. Commissioner Maya Foty urged the designers to find historic design models from within the district as inspiration for window and door treatments to enliven the Porter Street frontage.

---Fred Leeson

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Remembering Chinese History at Lone Fir Cemetery

Long-awaited plans for a Chinese memorial and historical site in the southwest corner of Lone Fir Cemetery have received enthusiastic endorsements from the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission and Chinese Americans who helped with the plans.

 The one-block section of the historic pioneer cemetery, known as Block 14, served as a Chinese burial ground from the 1860s to the late 1950s.   It was bulldozed for the construction of a Multnomah County building erected in 1952, and it wasn’t until that building was demolished that details resurfaced about its history as a Chinese burial site.

 Historic plaques proposed for the site will describe the importance of Chinese labor in Portland’s development as well as racism that barred further immigration and land ownership.  Chinese workers played major roles in the region’s mining and railroad construction. 

“The Block 14 Memorial is intended to honor marginalized people buried at Lone Fir and authentically share their stories, while striving to create a space that will foster understanding and healing,” wrote Gary Shepherd, a lawyer for Metro, the public agency that oversees the cemetery.

 Close to 2,900 Chinese were buried on the block.  Of those, remains of some 700 men were repatriated to China in accord with traditional custom.  Most of the other remains – the exact number not known – were of woman and children.

Funerary burner and alter (Oregon Historical Society phto)

An altar and funerary burner were erected on the block by the Chinese in the 1870s, but were destroyed by the 1950s.  No remains of them have been found.  The location of the altar will be recognized in the proposed design.

 Plans call for the original entrance of the block to be restored between two stone columns located north of the intersection of SE 20th Ave. and Morrison St.  A memorial pavilion near the entry would hold 3,000 metallic spiritual tablets representing people buried there.  Some will be identified by name, but many will be nameless because their names were never recorded by cemetery officials at the time.

Proposed memorial pavilion

 An arching footpath will traverse across raised ground from the west entry to the eastern side of the block.  New soil will be added to create the mound so as not to bother any gravesides.  The meadow will be planted with gingko and yulan magnolia trees and perennial shrubs.  Michael Yun, a landscape architect, said the magnolias provide beautiful white flowers in the spring and gingkoes add dramatic color in the fall.  Both species have long histories in the Chinese culture. 

 The proposed plan presented to the Landmarks Commission represented a 30 percent stage of design.  The commission unanimously supported the plan, using terms such as “lovely” and “wonderful.”  Details about a starting and completion date are not yet known.

----Fred Leeson

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Why Historic Buildings Matter

 

With all the new buildings and modern housing facing SW Durham Road on the suburban flank of Tigard, it’s easy to miss the small, white wooden building that started life in 1920 as a two-room schoolhouse.

 After all these years, it’s worth glancing occasionally at the Durham School with a bell still residing in its small steeple.  A quick look at the modest building – expanded in 1937 and again in 1951s – tells us why historic buildings are important to save.

 Without its presence, we might not realize that the bountiful suburban sprawl around it was once primarily agricultural land.  Or that generations of children romped and played on its grounds, just as we once did wherever else we grew up.  And that human life is a continuing chain, and that we need to remember occasionally that others came before us, just as others will come after us.

The simple Craftsman-era architecture reminds us that simplicity can indeed embrace elegance, and that wooden buildings in our heritage can survive for prolonged periods if we bother to take care of them responsibly along the way.  Woodworkers can look at the building’s straight lines and recognize that yes, careful, lasting, quality work indeed preceded the loud buzzing of power tools.

The school and Durham Road are named after Albert Alonzo Durham, who succeeded as a miner in the California gold fields before arriving in the Tigard area in 1869.  Durham then built his subsequent economic success as a grist mill operator.  The area came to be known as “Durham Station” and as a stop along the Oregon Electric Railway.

The “old” Durham School we see today is actually the second Durham School.  It seems that no photographs remain of its predecessor erected in the 19th Century, and little is known about it today.

 The old school that survives has had several uses during its life, including tenure as an alternative high school.  The Tigard School District, to its great credit, seems committed to maintaining its classrooms and library for additional future use.  Adaptive reuse is a critical tool for saving historic buildings.

 The little white building offers another important lesson about historic preservation: monumental size or grandeur is not necessities for a genuine, important monument.

----Fred Leeson

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An Amazing 'Save' in Alameda

 

von Homeyer residence, facing west

When death and old age finally extracted the eccentric von Homeyer brothers from their lifetime home in Northeast Portland’s Alameda neighborhood, they left behind a daunting mess.

Seven junked cars sat in the back yard.  Years of hoarding left the interior of the 11/2-story home so packed with stuff there was barely room for passage.  Years of deferred maintenance took a toll from attic to basement.

In short, demolition seemed the obvious outcome.  Given city planners’ apparent lust for multifamily buildings, developers would salivate over the unusual trapezoidal lot at NE 24th Ave between Mason and Dunckley Streets.   

Alas, the developers never got the chance.  Nearby neighbors Jaylen and Michael Schmitt bought the property for $500,000, according to city property records, and spent months cleaning up the mess.  Then they worked on plans with MkM Architecture to restore and upgrade the house, built by the von Homeyer brother’s father in 1926.  It was the only home Hans and Karl von Homeyer ever had.

Schmitt said he and his wife had experience making renovations at their own home.  They also were concerned about what a new development would look like.  "We didn't want some monstrous mansion built across the street," he said. 

Alameda neighborhood historian Doug Decker, who has a marvelous grasp of researching city building and property records, found an original drawing of the house and its floorplan, designed by a Swedish immigrant architect, Ragnar Lambert Arnesen.   Decker’s investigations also uncovered many historic photographs and details of the von Homer family history.  You can read details as he uncovered them on Decker’s blog at www.alamedahistory.org.

South and east (rear) facades

Decker also found a building permit for 1959 which led to enclosure of columns on the front porch.  The added interior floor space provided more room for piano instruction offered to many students by Frances von Homeyer, mother of the two sons.  She died in 1990. 

As contemporary construction photographs show, the porch is being returned to its original open-air design.

Schmitt said he hopes to offer the house for sale when renovations are done, but he is not sure he will be able to recapture the investment at once.  If property values suggest he is risking a loss, he might offer the house as a rental until a sale makes financial sense. 

Neighbors taking action to save an interesting vintage home and to prevent construction of an imposing new building that wouldn’t relate to the context its neighborhood could prove to be a valuable, albeit rare, strategy for preservationists.

----Fred Leeson

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Whither Albina?

 

Brent Leggs addresses Albina Preservation Initiative

The leader of a bold national initiative to preserve Black historic sites took a walking tour of Portland’s Albina neighborhood and offered a few tips about big plans to create a new neighborhood on the bare bones of the old Albina.

 Brent Leggs is the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action fund that is using $150 million in donations to help preserve important Black historical sites nationwide.  The intent of the national campaign is “to add missing chapters of our American history,” Leggs said.

His tour of Albina showed Leggs that “you can literally see how urban renewal erased physical history,” he said.  Nevertheless, “I saw beauty.  I saw community resilience.  It’s exciting to see the reclamation of history.”

 Albina’s physical landscape, amounting to the “downtown” of Portland’s Black retail, dining and entertainment community, was seriously fractured by construction of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum   and by an Emmanuel Hospital urban renewal plan that wiped out several blocks of small businesses.  After the urban renewal plan lost funding in the 1970s, some of the land remains vacant 50 years later.

One attendee at Leggs’ speech noted that plans for the new Albina consist of taller buildings than ever existed, meaning that the neighborhood will have nothing of the urban feel of old Albina.

 Leggs said the important steps are to preserve what is left.  And to work with developers who can be convinced that the new plans should try to save and complement the past.  “The stories of every day matter,” he said, adding that Albina’s community history should be recognized as part of Portland’s history.  Leggs studied marketing and business at the University of Kentucky before becoming involved in historic preservation, giving him an idea of the upsides and downsides of working with developers.

Leggs also urged that donations be made to complete restoration of the Billy Webb Elks Lodge, a building with a century of Black Portland history that was seriously damaged by fire.  The wood-frame building was erected by the YWCA in the 1920s for Black residents when Portland’s downtown YWCA was segregated.  After integration of the downtown YWCA, the building was sold to a Black assemblage of Elks members.  Restore Oregon is leading the renovation [project.

 The appearance by Leggs was sponsored by the Oregon Black Pioneers, Moreland Resource Consulting and Restore Oregon.  Leggs, who also is a senior vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, ticked off several recent preservation victories for Black historic sites.  They include the Washington, D.C., home of Frederick Douglass; the boxing gym of Joe Frazier in Philadelphia; the A.G. Gaston Motel, a civil rights venue in Birmingham, Alabama; the Sojourner Truth Legacy Plaza in Akron, Ohio; and Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, N.C.

In the 1980s, Cathy Galbraith, then executive director of the Architectural Heritage Center, undertook an extensive history of significant Black properties in Northeast and North Portland.  The “Cornerstones of Community” volume could prove to be a useful reference in rebuilding the “new” Albina.

 ----Fred Leeson

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Welcome to the 'New' Benson Polytechnic High School

 

It would be wonderful to think that the hundreds of people who lined up to tour the renovated Benson Polytechnic High School were all dedicated preservationists.

 More accurately, the visitors were mostly Benson grads from many decades who returned “home,” so to speak, to see what was new and what remained of the school they once attended.  Indeed, there was plenty of old AND new as the public got its first look at the sixth Portland high school to undergo thorough renovation.

For sure, the costly renovation was a preservation victory that will allow the building completed in 1916 to achieve many more years of vocational and pre-college education.  The most historic parts of the building – the foyer, west wing, gymnasium and auditorium -- retain their historic look and feel. 

Benson foyer

Several ancillary buildings that were added periodically over the years on the eastern side of the main hall were removed and replaced by new facilities including an attractive outdoor plaza between the historic wing and the new additions.

 “They did take out a lot of history,” said one alum who graduated in 2,000.  Regardless, she was pleased that the historic wing was carefully restored and reinforced for earthquake protection.

 

Benson auditorium

It is a lesson that preservationists wish the Portland School Board would apply at the historic Cleveland High School in Southeast Portland.  The school board has voted to demolish Cleveland and replace it with a new building.  A better model is the sort careful preservation/renovation projects already carried out Benson and at Grant, Roosevelt, Franklin, and McDaniel High Schools.

School district voters have yet to consider a bond measure that would pay for the Cleveland project.   In the meantime, preservation advocates hope there is still a chance for the school board to change its mind, especially if a preservation/renovation plan comes in with a better price tag.

In the meantime, take a careful look at Benson the next time you drive buy.  The building has been a valued piece of East Portland history for 108 years, and well worth keeping for its bygone architectural style and the countless memories created within it. 

New plaza looking east

----Fred Leeson

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'Historic Enlightenment' in Portland Parks

 

New light and pole, Irving Park

The Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation is nearing the end of a project to replace 250 light poles in 12 city parks, using new poles and lights that substantially replicate the design of predecessors that ranged up to 100 years old.

 The scope of the project ranges from 88 lights in Mt. Tabor Park and 65 in Irving Park, down to four in Ladd Circle.  While the new lights look like the old ones, they are lit with LED lights that a said to be 66 percent more efficient and bear sensors that automatically turn them on at dusk and off at dawn.  Most of the poles have been installed already; the remainder are scheduled to be finished by year’s end.

 In addition, the fixtures are designed to be “dark sky friendly,” meaning that the lights are restricted from sending light into the sky or bothering nearby residences.  While some LED lights can be glaringly white, the new installations offer a warmer, creamier nighttime glow.

Historic fixture at Architectural Heritage Center 

Trouble with the old light poles became an issue in June, 2022, when a babysitter and a young boy were resting in a hammock they had attached to a tree and a light pole, causing the pole to topple.  A city investigation concluded that dozens of the old poles were inadequately secured near the ground.  (It should be noted that attaching anything to a park light pole is a violation of the Portland City Code.)

 While nothing required the city to seek new poles and fixtures that looked comparable to the old ones, the decision carries an implicit suggestion that our parks have been important public spaces for decades.  The welcome historical symbolism suggests that the parks have been vital places for public recreation and respite for a long time – and should remain so for many decades to come. 

----Fred Leeson

 
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