"Ground Floor, Otis Elevator"

 

Jokesters used to tease Portland as being a city where the Otis Elevator Company was headquartered in a one-story building.

 

Well, true dat.

 

The company in 1920 built its one-story building with Italian Renaissance styling on a 5,000-square foot lot at N.W. 10^th Ave. and Everett St. The west end served as the office and the rear portion of the building was used for storage and fabrication.

 

The charming little building – which survives today in excellent condition – belies the importance of elevators in modern architecture. Paired with the advent of steel-frame construction, the elevator industry helped the world advance into the skyscraper era. The Portland Otis office was instrumental in assisting Portland’s early high-rise buildings such as the Wells Fargo Building, Meier & Frank, Jackson Tower, Benson Hotel, American Bank Building as well as many newer tall buildings.

Portland’s stylish Otis office was designed by an Otis company architect whose identity is now known. The firm was building many buildings around the nation at the time. The 1920 date is interesting because it came near the end of architecture’s tradition of using historic styles.

  

“Its classical facade expresses a central tenet of the Beaux Art influenced, classically derived architecture of the time, i.e., that even mundane uses should be housed in nobly-designed

structures,” states a history compiled for the National Register of Historic Places. “The Otis Building is noteworthy as a relatively late example of this tenet, since by the time of its construction it was already becoming common to house industrial uses in more functionally-designed structures.”

 

The west facade contains tall Romanesque arched windows office entry is decorated with an arched terra cotta pediment.  Above, a frieze, cornice and red tile roof are customary Italian Renaissance details.  The northern facade reflects the warehouse portion of the building with simpler design and fewer architectural details.

 

Otis used the building until 1975. The former office space is now home to a certified public accountant, and the interior by visual inspection (peeking in the windows) appears largely intact. The former warehouse is contains an artist-run art gallery.

 

Elisha Graves Otis invented his first elevator in 1852. The early ones were intended for hoisting machinery. By 1857 Otis elevators were adapted for carrying people; Otis also invented a safety mechanism that prevented the elevator from falling if its supporting ropes were severed.  His successful demonstration of the safety device launched his elevators as people carriers.

 

After 123 years, Portland’s Otis building reflects design, materials and craftsmanship of an architectural era that no longer exists. We should appreciate its presence and its charm --
and hope that its long life continues without harmful alterations.

And that’s no joke.

 

----Fred Leeson

 

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Remembering the Barlow Wagon Road

 

Venturing outside our normal geographic  boundaries, an opportunity presented itself to take a quick look at the William Barlow House south of Canby. It was built in 1885 by William Barlow who, in his early 20s, helped his father Samuel create the Barlow Road wagon route from The Dalles to Oregon City.

 Created in 1846, the rugged Barlow Road gave Oregon Trail pioneers an option for leaving the Columbia River and travelling to Oregon City over the Cascade Range instead of journeying around the river’s treacherous falls and rapids.

 The Barlow House is a charming version of the two-bay High Victorian Italianate style.  It evidently was erected by a master carpenter without benefit of an architect. Lumber was cut and milled on the site.

 Preservation Consultant Bo Sullivan reports that the long-time owners, who have done a remarkable job of restoration, recently completed restoration of the iron fencing on the roof.  Known colloquially as a widow’s walk or captain’s walk, the device allows one to appreciate views from a high elevation.  Functionally, it allows easy, safe access for cleaning chimneys.

 Sullivan said the owners found fragments of the original railing, which provided a template for new fabrication.

 One can contemplate that inspiration for the house’s design came from San Francisco rather than Portland.  San Francisco was home to literally hundreds of Italianate houses while Portland had far fewer. Given the California gold rush and the active sea trade between Portland and San Francisco, it is easy to appreciate San Francisco’s influence.

 

(National Register of Historic Places) 

An older black-and-white image (likely from the 1970s) shows porches that were added at some point to the western and northern sides of the house. These greatly impaired the original architecture, and fortunately have been removed.

 The old photograph also shows two long rows of black walnut trees leading from the road to the main entrance.  According to Barlow lore, these were the first black walnut trees imported to Oregon.  Although none survive, Sullivan said the owners are thinking of replanting them.

 Sullivan said the house is occasionally open for viewing, but otherwise the owners wish not to be bothered by sightseers. Given their dedication to preservation and restoration, we should willingly limit our appreciation for their historic house and excellent work by viewing from afar. 

 ----Fred Leeson

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Painted Ladies

NW Glisan Street

“Those Victorians must have had fun,” said my friend who likes old houses.  She was referring to the bright, multi-colored paint jobs on old houses that have come to be known as Painted Ladies.

 Alas, if the Victorians had fun with their houses, it WASN’T because of the vibrant pinks, purples, yellows and other hues applied to the architectural details.  No, the Painted Ladies arose from the Flower Power generation in San Francisco in the 1960s.

 The trend began in 1963 when an artist named Butch Kardum used multiple colors to accentuate the details of his mother’s house on Steiner Street. His creative paint job attracted criticism, but his neieighbors followed suit, creating a street widely photographed by tourists to this day.  The name Painted Ladies comes from a 1978 book written about the phenomenon. 

Steiner Street (Library of Congress)

An example of Painted Ladies in Portland occurs on NW Glisan Street, where four houses dating to 1906 – shown at the top – have four or more colors applied individually to various details.  (The bright yellow digging machine in the street is purely coincidental.)  These houses reflect the Craftsman era, where the overall designs were simpler than the Italianate and Edwardian designs that flourished in Nineteenth Century San Francisco.  Nevertheless, the colors do grab one’s eyes.

 In the original era of Victorian and Edwardian houses, color schemes generally included just one or two colors on the main walls and a third color for brackets, cornices and window and door surrounds.  The colors available at the turn of the 20th Century were more bland than the palette available now.

 Bright colors on the Painted Ladies are eye-catching in themselves.  But if you are accustomed to looking at architectural details, the vibrant colors help an observer appreciate the various parts that contribute to the architectural whole.  They offer a window into design techniques and craftsmanship from the long-gone era.

 In addition, the Painted Ladies also testify to the skill of the color designers and careful work y the painters.  Painted Ladies don’t come from spray guns.  One drawback:  The Sun's radiation makes the bright colors fade faster than the gentler, traditional hues.

If you know of other Painted Ladies worthy of our attention in the Portland area, feel free to add them in a comment. 

 ---Fred Leeson

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Remembering Bosco and Milligan

 

You are probably too late to buy the grand, 138-year old High Victorian Italianate residence on NW Hoyt St., even if you were willing to pay more than the $1.125 million asking price.

 The well-preserved architectural gem is one of Portland’s last grand Italianate houses, many of which flourished in the city’s most elegant turn-of-the-century neighborhoods.  Portland’s wet weather and development trends eventually spelled doom for these carefully-crafted wooden marvels.

 This house is notable aside from its architectural charm and its lengthy home for a pioneer Portland butcher turned stockman, Joseph Bergman.  It was also the last home of Ben Milligan and Jerry Bosco, two of Portland’s early architectural preservation activists and artifact collectors.

 

From the late 1950s to their deaths in the late 1980s, Bosco and Milligan bought old houses and restored them in Southeast Portland, and spent countless hours retrieving more than 20,000 architectural artifacts from houses and buildings being torn down during those years.

 One of their last real estate purchases included the badly-deteriorated, two-story West’s Block at 701 SE  Grand Ave.   Built in 1883 as a store with housing on the second floor, the building had devolved to a strip club on the ground floor and uninhabitable space above a hundred years later.

 Thanks to a bequest in their wills and long, hard work from many friends, the West Block eventually was restored as the Architectural Heritage Center, which is owned by the Bosco-Milligan Foundation.  The center now houses a small fraction of their artifact collection, including dozens of historic pieces of stained glass.  The building also houses exhibits and offers lectures aimed at Portland’s architectural history and preservation.

 Philip Austin knew Milligan and Bosco during their collecting days and their final years at the Hoyt Street house.  “I was in there a lot, especially after they died,” he said.  “When I was working on cleaning out the house they had two of the bedrooms for storage, a front bedroom was the trunk room full of old trunks full of stuff, and a back bedroom had shelving with boxes filled with things.  In the basement were stain-glass windows and other stuff.  They had put in some ceiling medallions that they made and installed in the front parlors.”

 Austin has looked at the photographs in the recent realty listings.  “It has been upgraded a lot since they were there,” he says.  While the interior shows many tasteful 21st Century changes, the exterior has been beautifully preserved. 

 As well it should have.  Having been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983, any changes to the exterior would have been carefully regulated.

 ----Fred Leeson

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Progress on Restoring the Elk Fountain and Statue

 

Despite a unanimous Portland City Council decision 11 months ago, there has been little public discussion about restoring the historic David P. Thompson elk statue and fountain that was damaged and then removed after public protests in 2020.

Obviously, however, there has been talk and activity in the background aimed at rebuilding the fountain and elk pedestal at its historic location on S.W. Main Street.

 The evidence became clear at a City Council work session on April 10 for the 2023-2024 municipal budget.  The non-profit Portland Park Foundation proposed to raise funds to pay for construction drawings for the restoration project, if the city promises to allocate $1.5 million for construction costs.

 The $1.5 million presumably would come from Water Bureau revenues, given that the Water Bureau is charged with rebuilding the fountain.  The Parks Bureau will be in charge of replacing the elk statue.

 Mary Ruble, the foundation’s treasurer, said $70,000 in commitments already has been raised.  Randy Gragg, the foundation’s executive director, said a crowd-funding campaign would begin if the City Council assures construction costs. “We anticipate widespread approval” by citizens, he said.  The total estimated cost of design and construction drawings is $156,000. 

If the plan comes to fruition, the elk and its fountain would be restored sometime in 2024. 

 Timing is critical.   A new form of city government takes power in 2025, and there is no guarantee that a new, 12-member City Council would carry out a resolution adopted by the five-member council in May, 2022.

The fountain and statue were given to the city in 1900 by David P. Thompson, an early pioneer and one-time Portland mayor who also was a founder of the Oregon Humane Society.

 While it would be inappropriate to assume that City Council reconstruction funding is assured, three of the five council members ---Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioners Mingus Mapps and Dan Ryan -- referred favorably to the fountain in their comments during the budget session.  Wheeler said the elk “symbolically has a great deal of importance to the people of the city.” He said its restoration be a welcome sign of downtown recovery.

 Mayor Ted Wheeler is expected to produce a final proposed budget in mid-May, when it will be sent to the City Council for final approval in June.

---Fred Leeson

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Where's Waldo?

 

If you tell Portlanders that one of downtown’s best examples of architectural preservation is the Waldo Block, the response likely will be, “The WHAT block?”

A recent paint job that does a better job of accentuating the details of a building erected in 1886 makes the slender structure at SW 2nd Ave and Washington St. look its best since, well, maybe 1886. 

For 30 years it was best known as the home of the Elephant & Castle restaurant, but that run ended in 2003.   The Waldo Block was erected in 1886, near the end of Portland’s adventure with cast iron construction with Italianate detailing.  It featured retail on the ground floor and two stories of housing above.

The building was erected by, and named for, John Waldo, an early Portland lawyer who served one term on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1880 to 1886.  The original architect is not known, but the building includes interesting recessed balconies on the third floor of the SW 2nd Avenue façade.

Sometime in the 1890s, the building became a key element of Portland’s original Chinatown, providing both housing, social events and gambling for Chinese community.  Chinese owners possessed the building from 1943 until 1980, when a subsequent owner found opium scales and gambling equipment and furniture.

 As the building changed hands over the years, its 19th Century cornice and some other details were shorn off, no doubt by owners hoping to reduce maintenance costs.  By 1980, as a historic photograph shows, it seemed that its future likely was to include a wrecking ball.  Portland’s Chinatown had moved north of Burnside and the downtown business district had moved a few blocks to the west.

An excellent restoration in the mid-1980s, however, replaced the cornice and returned the Waldo Block to its former glory.  The housing was converted to offices with the restaurant as the primary ground-floor tenant.

Perhaps one reason the building isn’t better known is its unfortunate location at the westbound off-ramp from the Morrison Bridge.  A parking lot lies across directly across Washington Street.  Coupled with the rush of traffic off the bridge, the wider Washington street exposure is not an especially pleasant pedestrian experience.

 Regardless, the Waldo Block is an excellent piece of downtown Portland’s cast iron architectural history.  Take a look the next time you whiz past.

------Fred Leeson

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Good News in Northwest Portland

 

(Hartshorne-Plunkard Architecture)

One year ago, demolition of a notable landmark church in Northwest Portland loomed as a possibility as its owners looked desperately for a buyer.

One year later, the former First Church of Christ, Scientist now looms as one of Portland’s most notable preservation successes.  Under plans approved by the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission, the 1909 beaux-arts structure at 1819 NW Everett should be painstakingly restored and paired with a new five-story hotel behind it. 

 Though the two buildings will not physically touch, the three-story historic church will become an accessory of the hotel, containing a lounge, coffee shop, event space and spa for the 80-room hotel to be built on a quarter-block parking lot at the rear of the church.

 Finding adaptable uses for old landmarks that have outlived their original purposes is one of the toughest challenges in the preservation world.  That process is even tougher when the landmark is a church that once held up to 1100 parishioners for Sunday services.

Preservation of the church building will include earthquake bracing, repair or replacement of deteriorated stonework, a new roof and full renovation of large, leaded windows of opalescent glass that dominate three public facades of the building.

(Hartshorne-Plunkard Architecture)

The hotel, with its front door at the corner of NW 19th and Flanders St., will be finished in stucco with gentle does of historic European architectural details.  Chicago architect Andrew Becker said the hotel’s design was intended to be sympathetic to the era of the church without trying to be flashier than the historic building.  The final design was a toned-down version from plans submitted a few months ago for an advisory hearing.

 Both buildings will be outfitted with roof-top terraces that will give visitors outstanding views of downtown Portland.

Landmarks commission members lauded detailed plans for fixing the run-down church while finding a successful new life for it.  “I’m so thrilled this building has a future,” said Commissioner Peggy Moretti.  Adding a religious flourish, she added, “Hallelujah!”  Commissioner Matthew Roman suggested that seismic additions at the church could become a model for retrofitting many of Portland’s old, unreinforced masonry buildings.

The First Church of Christ Science left the building more than 50 years ago as its membership declined.  The building served subsequently as a community center, a home for several nom-profit agencies and later as a theatrical school for children.

Sale of the building and its parking lot to a Las Vegas development company has been held in abeyance until the development plans were approved.  After the commission’s unanimous approval, Becker, the architect, said, “We are anxious to move as quickly as we can.”

-----Fred Leeson

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Jantzen Carousel: The Clock is Ticking

(Restore Oregon)

 Dozens of brightly-painted wooden horses that once comprised the Jantzen Beach carousel are starting now to look like --- white elephants.

 Restore Oregon, a statewide preservation advocacy group, took possession of the dismantled carousel in 2017 hoping to restore its parts and find a new location for it within five years.

 Three years ago, Restore Oregon reached an agreement with the Portland Diamond Project to include the carousel as part of development of a major league baseball stadium.  That agreement has come to an end – and hopes for landing a major league team have yet to reach first base.

 “We want it up and running again,” said Stephanie Brown, the carousel project manager.  “Everyone who loves it wants it up and running again (and that includes the nice folks at PDP.) But full restoration is going to take a few years because we have dozens of horses still in need of repair. The sooner full restoration can begin, the sooner people can enjoy the carousel again.”

 But there is no guarantee that a new home will be found in Portland.  Restore Oregon has talked extensively with public agencies and private developers – and found no serious interest.  Putting it up for sale likely would attract interest and a sale to some other city.

  The 20-ton relic from the early 20th Century entertained family and children from 1928 to 1970 at the Jantzen Beach Amusement Park and then at the Jantzen Beach Mall until 2012.  Plans to return the carnival ride to a revised shopping mall were never carried out.

 After five quiet years in storage, the carousel’s owner donated the deconstructed pieces in 2017 to Restore Oregon.  The September date would mark the end of the sixth year in Restore Oregon’s custody.

 A major challenge to finding a new location is that the carousel, measuring 67 feet in diameter and 29 feet tall, needs to sit in an enclosed building of roughly 10,000 square feet. 

 The carousel, a "Superior Park” model built by the C.W. Parker company, is five years away from its centennial anniversary.  Brown said finding a permanent location is the key to raising enough money to complete its restoration. 

 Newly-built carousels in cities such as Missoula, Montana and Salem have proven popular for adding family-friendly activity within the city.  Somewhere, someday, the same will be said of the historic Jantzen Beach carousel.  But where? 

-----Fred Leeson

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Good News at Duniway Elementary School

(IBI Group)

 Like many other jurisdictions, Portland Public Schools long held a bad reputation for abusing original architectural details when periodically “modernizing” its older buildings.  Fortunately, that’s not the case with repairs in store for Duniway Elementary School in the Eastmoreland neighborhood.

 The school’s status as a local Portland landmark meant repairs to the roof and a series of exterior architectural details had win approval from the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission. The volunteer panel takes a close look at proposed change, with an eye towards retaining the original look and materials of historic structures.

 PPS took the project seriously, hiring people with genuine preservation experience to examine the school’s renovation needs while staying faithful the schools 1926 “collegiate gothic” design by George H. Jones, the school district’s in-house architect at the time.

 Duniway’s construction occurred at the midpoint of Jones’ 14-year career at the district.  His busy tenure included design of 25 Portland schools, including Irvington, Vernon, Portsmouth, Ockley Green, King and a 1200 seat auditorium at Roosevelt High School.

 Duniway ranks as one of Portland’s most attractive schools of the era, and makes a welcome contribution to the Eastmoreland National Historic District.  Retaining its historic feel is a plus for the neighborhood and for people travelling along Southeast Reed College Place.

 The renovations will include replacing the multi-colored tile roof and replacing parts of the decorative balustrades of cast stone that have suffered from nearly a century of wet weather.  Identical pieces of the balustrades will be replaced as necessary by new ones made of glass fiber reinforced concrete, a product that is expected to endure Portland’s climate. 

The colorful sketch below shows the extent of work to be done on the school’s primary west façade.  The landmarks commission approved the plans by a 4-0 vote, after complimenting the design team for its work. Key players in the planning included Matthew Braun of the IBI Group and Matthew Davis of Architectural Resources Group.  

 

(IBI Group)

While talking in historical terms, we must not forget Abigail Scott Duniway, for whom the school was named.  An early proponent of voting rights for women, Duniway fought valiantly at the Oregon Legislature from 1872 until 1912, when voters made Oregon the seventh state to approve women’s rights to vote.  One of her primary opponents during that long fight was her own brother, Harvey W. Scott, editor of the Oregonian newspaper, who editorialized stridently against her.

Duniway was honored by becoming the first woman in Multnomah County to register to vote.  She died in 1915, five years before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution extended voting rights nationwide, regardless of sex.

 ----Fred Leeson

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Renaissance at the Harlow Block

 

From high hopes to hard times and back again, few of Portland’s historic buildings have seen the economic swings and racial animosity wrapped within the three-story brick building at 722 NW Glisan St.  The newly-restored Harlow Hotel is named for John Harlow, an early steamboat captain who built it in 1882.

Harlow, an early entrepreneur who also laid out and named the City of Troutdale, originally called his building the Grand Hotel, assuming it would draw customers from the proposed big new railway depot just few blocks away.

Alas, changes in plans meant the depot wouldn’t open for another 14 years.  That was the first of many bumps in the road for the hotel that originally was heated by wood stoves and lacked electricity.  Electricity didn’t arrive until after World War I.

 In the 1930s, the hotel and ground-floor storefronts were managed by Japanese proprietors, but all lost their businesses when Portland’s Japanese residents were sent to internment camps at the start of World War II.  Post war, the building was inhabited by low-income monthly tenants rather than tourists.  The upper two floors were closed to tenants in 1972.

 

The building remained largely vacant for decades. Though its condition deteriorated, many of its internal details including door and window casings remained.  The building was purchased in 2008 by Ganesh Sonpatki, who operates moderately-priced hotels under the Portland Value Inns brand.

 It seemed like the building’s bad luck continued, as restoration was slowed first by the 2008 recession.  Because the Harlow Hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, design changes took longer than expected to be planned, approved and then accomplished.  The addition of an elevator  was a complicating technical factor.

 The upper two hotel floors were finished and ready for opening in 2019 – just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.  The street also has suffered from homeless people living in sidewalk tents. As a result, building’s reemergence as a viable hotel drew little attention.

 The ground floor originally contained five storefronts, with the hotel entry up a central stairway.  Now, with the exception of a coffeeshop, the ground floor spaces are devoted to lobbies and an exercise room.

Images of the attractive, renovated interior can be seen here:  https://harlowhotelpdx.com/

 The Harlow Hotel is believed to be the second oldest brick structure in the neighborhood.  The restored  Merchant Hotel at NW 2nd and Davis St. is two years older, dating to 1880.

 

Cast iron column, here painted black, were a frequent element in 1880s architecture 

The Harlow Hotel originally had an arched entry leading to the second floor hotel.  The arch was lost during a renovation in the 1940s when it was covered with stucco.  It now has been recreated.  The gently arched windows reflect also an Italianate design popular late in the 19th Century.  The original architect is not known.

 For all the bumps it has survived in the past, the Harlow Hotel could be headed to better days amid new, fancier surroundings.  The former U.S. Main Post office one block north of Glisan Street is being torn down and its large, soon to be vacant site is expected to sprout a combination of high-rise buildings in the future.

 Given the difficulty of its history and challenges in its restoration, the Harlow seemingly has earned a better life.  

 ----Fred Leeson

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Reimagining O'Bryant Square

 

For the past five years, chain-link fencing has sealed off O’Bryant Square, a small downtown block that used urban renewal money in 1973 to develop a park atop an underground parking garage.

In a small way, it was the kind of project that gave urban renewal a bad name.  The public restrooms attracted graffiti, drug use and sexual activity.  The big decorative water fountain seeped water into the parking garage.  It acquired nicknames of Needle Park and Paranoia Park.

Oddly, its best use occurred earlier this decade when it provided imnpromptu seating for food carts located on a nearby vacant block.  The square provided the sort of  pleasant activity that urban renewal planners never considered, since food carts didn't exist in their day.  But now the food carts are gone and that block is sprouting a luxury tower. Given all the park's problems, the city simply fenced it off. in 2018.

Now the chain-link fencing is scheduled to come down so the small block can be completely levelled.  The non-profit Portland Parks Foundation has announced plans for a public “visioning” process to determine how the park should be redeveloped.

What the park will look like, what it will be used for, when it will be rebuilt and for how it will cost are questions that have no answers as yet.

The planning will begin with some bottom-up thinking, rather than from the top down.  Randy Gragg, the park foundations executive director, said the goal is “to bring national and local thinkers together with the community to re-envision the park’s future.”

After meetings in February and March, the foundation hopes to envision a first-phase design and to “learn what activities work, and don’t, to shape the future permanent design” when funding becomes available.

 Citizens interested in learning about the process and how to participate can find information at https://www.portlandpf.org/back-to-square-one-green-dreams?mc_cid=1b2cbf4b81&mc_eid=0ca4b529f6

The planning process is similar to one used by the Parks Bureau in the early 2000s when it devised plans for Director Park.  Though the park’s activity has been stymied by the pandemic in recent years, its fundamental design was a success.

 The challenge at O’Bryant Square (named for Portland’s first mayor) is deciding who is most likely to use it and for what purposes.  Located at SW Park Ave. and Washington St., it is not adjacent to the downtown retail core nor close to most high-rise offices.  More than likely it needs some sort of pleasant attraction – perhaps a better fountain – and adequate seating, some with rain protection.  Perhaps a common "theme" can be developed that would help attract visitors.

 And it probably will need restrooms – another difficult design challenge.

 While Building on History always favors retaining the best of vintage architecture and public spaces, it is obvious that nothing in the current park is worthy of salvage.  We can only hope for a new and better outcome this time around..

 -----Fred Leeson

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