Nathan Simon House

Few Portland neighborhoods care as much about their architectural heritage the sprawling Northwest District Association.  Back in 1989, several residents in the “save the good old houses” movement had to be dragged by police from the porch of a house scheduled for demolition.

The drama likely won’t be as great for a residence at 2124 N.W. Flanders St., one of several in the vicinity built and occupied by the powerful Simon family.  In its early years it was the home of Nathan Simon, a lawyer and brother of the one-time Portland mayor, U.S. Senator and Oregon Senate president  Joseph Simon, who lived directly behind in a housing facing on Everett Street.

For 35 years or so, Joseph Simon was one of Oregon's leading power brokers in an era from 1880 to 1915 of bare-knuckle fighting between two factions of the Republican Party.  

The Nathan Simon house missed being added to the neighborhood’s historical inventory in the 1980s.   It apparently was missed as a result of confusion involving the city’s change of addresses in the Depression.  Demolition of a “contributing” building in the Alphabet National Historic District could be opposed at the Landmarks Commission and to the City Council. 

 Both the house’s interior and exterior have changed dramatically over the decades.  A big addition was added to the back (without a proper foundation) and the house was divided into 14 units – some so small they lack a bathroom.  What once likely was an elegant front porch was shortened to a stub and the whole building was encased in asbestos siding.

A developer proposed tearing down the house in 2010 and replacing it with an apartment building, but that developer moved on to bigger projects elsewhere.  Now, new owners are proposing a larger project of five stories and 19 units.

The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission came within an eyelash of approving the apartment plan on July 27, but wants to see some potential revisions to the fifth-story penthouse at a meeting next month.  The commission made it clear it has no ability to delay or recommend against demolition.

“We don’t get to tell the applicant NOT to tear down a non-contributing building in a historic district,” said Kristen Minor, commission chair.  “It’s not in our bailiwick to say yea or nay about taking it down.”  Maya Foty, a commission member who is a preservation architect, said the thought of removing a historic building gives her “heartburn,” but she added, “I can’t step outside the rules.”

                                       Proposed apartment building (Emerick Architects)

Dennis Harper, a member of the NWDA planning committee, said the committee was opposed to the building’s 65-foot height and reduced side yards.  Like many other testifiers, he said the neighborhood regrets the loss of affordable units. 

Joel Drummond, who said at 12 years he has lived in the building longer than other tenants, praised the owner, Elliott Gansner, as a good landlord who has made it clear to all tenants that demolition was a likely outcome.  “We are all grown-ups,” Drummond said.  He added that tenants likely will have eight months’ notice to relocate.

Aaron Dawson, another tenant, said he was aware of a potential tear-down, but despite what he said were 16,000 vacant units in Portland, finding one that was affordable was still difficult.  “You could put me back to living in my car,” he said.

Gansner said he has not raised rents in the two years he has been involved in the ownership group.  He said all tenants will be eligible for relocation assistance.  “I will dedicate as much time as necessary to help them find locations,” he said.

Gansner said the building was in such bad shape, renovating it was not economically viable.  “It has continued to be affordable (for tenants) because prior owners didn’t make the capital improvements that were necessary.” As for demolition, he added, “We don’t really have a choice.  The building is not sustainable in the current state.”

Designed by Emerick Architects, the proposed building takes cues for its primary façade from many brick-faced apartments built in the neighborhood in the 1920s.  The north-facing façade would be brick for four stories, with the penthouse set back from the front by nine feet.  Units would range from as few as 319 square feet to 950.  Units facing the south and west sides would have small outdoor decks.

The block on which the building would sit currently contains other apartment buildings in addition to some Victorian-era houses that appear to be well-maintained.  The proposed building would be the tallest on the block.

The Emerick firm is well-regarded in preservation circles, both for renovating existing buildings and for designing new ones that fit the context of historic districts.  Brian Emerick is a former member of the Landmarks Commission; he was on the commission in 2010 when a the earlier developer, Dennis Sackhoff, earlier developer proposed demolishing the Nathan Simon house. 

The Joseph Simon house, shown above, is difficult to photograph because of the trees. It sits immediately south of the Nathan Simon house.  Built in 1892, the Joseph Simon house still reflects its original Queen Anne style architecture with the double front gables, eyebrow dormer and fish-scale front shingles.  Unlike its younger sibling, it is listed as a contributing building in the Alphabet historic district.

Benson Polytechnic School

Planning is in the final stages for renovation of Benson Polytechnic High School.  The expansive project presents the difficult chore of preserving cherished elements of the muddled campus while preparing it for a new century of technical and career education.

 Architects have been working for four years to reach a consensus that appears to satisfy both parts of that challenging equation.  Meanwhile, the estimated price tag has climbed from $202 million to $295 million. 

 The good news on the preservation side is that is that the historic facades facing N.E. 12th Avenue and along Irving Street on the north and adjacent to Buckman Field on south side will be carefully restored to reflect original authenticity.  The historic entrance to the front of the 1917 building will continue as the school’s main entrance, and the old gymnasium, added in 1925 and the auditorium, added in 1929, also will remain and be repaired.  Likewise, the two-story foundry building at the northeast corner of the campus will be saved.

Preservation of the historic elements will include repairing or replacing bricks as needed, restoring windows and cleaning and repairing terra cotta ornamentation. 

 The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission has no jurisdiction over internal changes but reviews and approves restoration of the historic exterior components.  However, it appears that the architectural team will respect the interesting internal designs of the main lobby, the auditorium  the old gymnasium with its running track on a mezzanine. 

 Responses from community meetings in the past showed a strong desire for the project to “respect the past but to embrace the future,” said Lorne McConachie, a principal with Bassetti Architects in Portland. 

 The “future” will be plainly visible from the north and south sides of the campus.  The one-story historic facades will be backed on both sides by new two-story structures that will be set back about 19 feet from the historic walls.  The design of the new elements will be sleek and modern, to maintain a clear distinction between what is historic and what is not. 

 Overall, the plan includes 165,000 square feet of new construction, bringing the total campus to 379,000 square feet.   About 71,000 feet will be new space devoted to technical education. In all, the square footage amounts to more than nine downtown square  blocks. 

 The historic Benson facades will perpetuate a few names in the school’s history.  Foremost is the logging baron Simon Benson, who gave $100,000 in 1915 to pay for half of the $200,000 original cost.  That led to a change from the first proposed name, The Boys’ School of Trades.  Benson also is remembered for sponsoring the “Benson Bubblers,” Portland’s historic drinking fountains that Benson presumably hoped would discourage the city’s heavy alcoholic consumption in the era before Prohibition.

A construction bid for the first design of Benson by the school district’s architect, Floyd Naramore, was rejected because it exceeded the budget.  The school district then added Folger Johnson as a “consulting” architect for design revisions.  Both men were skilled architects.

 Naramore was the district’s architect from 1912 to 1917.  During trhat short span he worked on 16 schools – many of which still exist – including Benson and Franklin High Schools.  Naramore laid out the 7.33 acre Benson campus in the configuration of a capital H.  The overall H scheme is retained in the renovation plans.

 After 1917, Naramore  moved to Seattle where he was a school architect until 1932.  Thereafter he helped create a large Seattle firm that survives to the present.

 Johnson had come to Portland in 1911 after architectural training in New York and Paris, and a year working for a New York firm.  His surviving work in Portland includes four Carnegie-funded libraries in Multnomah County, the Albertina Kerr Nursery and the private Town Club.  Benson Polytechnic would have been his only affiliation with Naramore.  Regrettably, Johnson's career was obliterated at its peak by the Great Depression, which essentially ended new construction .  Both architects died in 1970.

 The balancing act required by the new generation of planners and architects earned outright praise from the city staff that has followed the planning.  “Great care has been taken in this proposal for the modernization of Benson Polytechnic High School,” a staff report to the Landmarks Commission stated.  “Based on thorough assessment of the existing historic fabric, the proposal has been carefully designed to protect, retain and repair important historic fabric… The new construction has been sensitively designed to maintain the historic character of the resource.”

 Matthew Roman, an architectural designer and member of the Landmarks Commission, said it a bit more simply.  “I still get a sense of the old buildings all the way around.  I really appreciate the effort to do that.”

 

 When the work is done, one of the most noticeable changes to passers-by on busy N.E. 12th Avenue will be a large X of gently-ramped walkways to accommodate people with disabilities who would have difficulty negotiating the change in elevation from the front sidewalk to the front doors.  The drawing below shows these new routes.

                                (Bassetti Architects/Architectural Resource Group)

Portland's Black History Matters

Billy Webb Elks Lodge 

Little-known chapters of African American history in Portland earned a well-deserved boost from the National Park Service last week when the federal agency added the Billy Webb Elks Lodge to the National Register of Historic Places and approved historical evidence of dozens of additional ethnically-important sites.

The multi-property document means that large numbers of sites would be eligible for the National Register in the event formal applications are made.  “With all the pressures for development, these properties are now on the radar” as worthy of protecting, said Denyse McGriff, vice president of the Architectural Center and a state advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  “There should be no dispute about their significance.”

Many of Portland’s African-American historical sites were demolished as a result of construction of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the Interstate-5 freeway and demolition of the heart of Albina for Emanuel Hospital facilities that were never built. 

 Brandon Spencer-Hartle, historic resources program manager for the city Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said the multi-property listing should help preserve the ethnically-important resources, "many of which have been inexcusably and deliberately overlooked by past planning efforts."

Much of the multi-property documentation arose from the “Cornerstones of Community: Buildings of Portland's African American History” book researched and written by the late Catherine Galbraith, executive director of the Architectural Heritage Center, with the cooperation of local historians and numerous community members. 

The paper-bound book, completed in 1995, detailed many decades of struggle by Portland’s African American community fighting de facto segregation in housing, schools, public accommodations, entertainment, business and civil rights.  Galbraith died in 2018, but was working on the multi-property nomination until her final days.

McGriff said the National Parks Service, along with state and local preservation organizations, now realize that culturally important sites do not have to be impressive buildings architecturally. Indeed, one of the most important sites in Portland could be the small bungalow where Otto and Verdell Rutherford met for decades with political and civil rights leaders to change laws in Oregon. 

There is no dispute, either, about the significance of the Billy Webb Elks building.  “It is one of the most significant African-American buildings in the Pacific Northwest," Galbraith once said.

Located at 6 N. Tillamook Ave., the building was erected by the YWCA in Portland’s segregation era.  It became known familiarly as the “Williams Avenue branch” or the “Colored YWCA.”  It was the meeting site for many organizations, including the local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congress of Racial Equality.  During World War II, the building was leased to the USO for entertaining members of the military.

In 1948, the Red Cross used the building to reunited family members who had been separated by the devastating Vanport flood.   Upon the completion of a new YWCA building in downtown Portland in 1959, the agency sold the building to the Billy Webb Elks Club, an affiliate of minority-run Elks clubs.  Billy Webb was an African-American band leader who worked on cruise ships plying between Portland and San Francisco.

The building underwent major restoration about 10 years ago.  Today it is open to the public (pandemic notwithstanding) for social events and club activities.

Golden West Hotel 

Among the many locations noted for their cultural importance, two stand out perhaps the most prominently: the Golden West Hotel and the second Mt. Olivet Baptist Church.

From 1906 to 1931, the five-story hotel at N.W. Broadway and Everett St. was the center of community life and business opportunity for Portland’s African-American citizens who were shut out of most other housing and business options.  Entrepreneur William G. Allen built the 100-room hotel that catered heavily to railroad workers working on trains arriving and departing at nearby Union Station.  Allen leased ground floor spaces to a barbershop, bar, athletic club and ice cream shop, providing  opportunities for other minority entrepreneurs.  There were few other doorways for African-Americans to lift themselves to middle-class incomes.

The Depression ended the hotel’s heyday.  Today the building has been renovated into low-income housing units run by Central City Concern.  In a nice historical touches, the large Golden West blade sign has returned to prominence and displays in two large windows on Broadway recount the building’s tenure as a vital element of the African-American community.

Mt. Olivet Baptist Church 

The second Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, at 1734 N.E. First Ave., throbbed with community civil rights activism for more than 50 years under the successive leadership of Revs. J.J. Clow and John H. Jackson.  Construction of the church was finished in 1923.  According to a church history, the project was assisted by building materials donated by the Ku Klux Klan, then politically active in Oregon, which wanted the church to move from its original location in Northwest Portland to the "proper side of town." 

The Mt. Olivet congregation outgrew the building in the late 1980s and eventually moved to a new site on N. Chautauqua Avenue.  Mt. Olivet still owns the “old” church, which is now used for services by The Well Community Church.

Albertina Kerr Nursery

The sadness here is not about the loss of a fine old building.  The building will survive.  The sadness is about loss of its pleasant and memorable public uses – no thanks to COVID-19.

There will be no more gourmet lunches or teas at Albertina’s Kitchen, at 424 N.E. 22nd Ave., nor any more sales at Albertina's Heirlooms, one of Portland's finest shops for antique glass, china, jewelry, knickknacks and small furnishings.

 After nearly 40 years of engaging directly with members of the public, the stylish 1921 Colonial Revival Albertina Kerr Center will continue being the administrative headquarters of a non-profit that provides services at several locations to children with mental health issues and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

“After thoughtful consideration it is with heavy heart that we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the restaurant and shops at Albertina’s Place,” Jeff Carr, Kerr’s CEO, posted on the agency’s website.  Albertina's Closet, a thrift shop, operated from a separate building on the same property. He said the pandemic led to too much concern for health safety with the public uses.  

The closures do not weigh heavily on Kerr’s bottom line.  The mostly-volunteer-run shops and restaurant netted about $450,000 last year, a pittance in a total agency budget of more than $43 million.

However, the closures will weigh on the many people who enjoyed stylish, leisurely and tasty lunches, and slow ambles through the antiques for sale.  Kerr had a staff of volunteer antiques experts who weighed the merit and value of all items brought in as proposed consignments; they rejected items they concluded were unworthy of the inventory.

On the plus side, closure of the public commerce will not affect the maintenance of the building, which has been well-maintained by Kerr given its 99-year history.  The Albertina Kerr Nursery was built in honor of Albertina Kerr, who died one year after her marriage to Alexander Kerr in 1910.  Mrs. Kerr had a strong commitment to newborn babies who needed help, and the family home in Northwest provided adoption services and daycare for single mothers after her death. 

 Alexander Kerr,  a deeply religious man who was founder of the Kerr Glass Jar Co., carried on with his wife's charitable enthusiasm. Kerr managed his successful business from Portland, but the glass canning jars were produced in San Francisco and in the Midwest. 

Those nursery operations expanded in 1921 with completion of the new Albertina Kerr Nursery, designed by the architecture firm headed by Folger Johnson.  Johnson, who arrived in Portland in 1911, had some of the fanciest training among local architects of his era, with a degree from Columbia University and having studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, then the world’s leading school for classical architecture studies.

 

Johnson chose a Colonial Revival theme (called Georgian for King George III in England, but Americans  rebelled against King George so we call it "colonial"), which is noted for its red brick walls and classical ornaments such as the Corinthian columns at the front entry and the pediment above.  Johnson included a round window, called an oculus, in the pediment.  It was a technique he had used elsewhere, also.

 In a light-hearted twist to classical design, the Kerr façade includes medallions composed of infants in swaddling clothes above the windows.  The nursery was used for babies awaiting adoptions from its opening until 1967.

 

Johnson’s work survives in several categories.  He did some elegant homes in exclusive neighborhoods, and four small libraries in Multnomah County funded by Andrew Carnegie.  The St. John’s branch remains as a library, while three others have different uses, including the history museum in Gresham.

 Johnson served as a consultant on Benson High School.  His most elegant building likely is The Portland Town Club, a private club for women erected in 1928 at 2115 S.W. Salmon.  You can see the outside of it here:

https://www.thetownclub.org/

 Like many architects of his era, Johnson's’ commissions plummeted during the Depression, which prevented him from adding to an inventory of elegant architecture.  He spent a decade starting in 1940 as Oregon director of the Federal Housing Administration.

 Johnson and his wife were active participants in Portland’s social life, and he frequently spoke to groups about architecture and gardens.  He never forgot his association with the Kerr building.  At his death at age 88 in 1970, his family recommended memorial donations to Albertina Kerr Nursery. 

Some volunteers who worked at the restaurant and heirloom shop hope that those services eventually will return.  It may well be that positive associations with those enterprises helped create awareness and fundraising possibilities for the agency's charitable work. 

UPDATE ON NEW CHINATOWN-JAPANTOWN HEIGHT ALLOWANCES

Much to no one's surprise, the Portland City Council on June 2 voted 3 to 1 to set building height allowances of 200 feet in the New Chinatown Japantown Historic District in Northwest Portland.

As you can read in an earlier blog post, preservation advocates urged a 125-foot maximum in the neighborhood where most buildings are generally not more than three or four stories.  The 200-foot maximum would allow buildings of close to 20 stories.

As a consequence of the building heights, owners of the small buildings essentially are encouraged to let them run down so they can be demolished.  Kristen Minor, chair of the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission, had urged heights of no more than 100 to 125 feet.  "It's disappointing there was no effort to compromise," said Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who cast the dissenting vote.  Fritz was disappointed that the council wasn't influenced by Minor's testimony. 

A crush of new buildings likely is not going to occur quickly, given economic circumstances.  But eventually it will come.  If the historic district is to have any relevance in the years ahead, it may well be only in photographs and historic displays in tower lobbies.   

"God is in the details"

The quotation above, surely one of the greatest in architectural lore, came from a mid-20th Century master of the glass and steel skyscraper, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.  Of course, its meaning is not limited to the modern era.

Nobody in Portland has a better sense of late 19th-Century classical details than architect William J. Hawkins III, who has devoted a long career to architectural research, writing and design.  When the 1888 Morris Marks house, above, was moved to its new location after a prolonged struggle over siting and transportation, Hawkins knew that the classic Italianate house was missing some elegant details in its elaborate wooden facade.

Before the move, this long-neglected stick-built house was close to becoming a pile of kindling.  The time-lapse video below illustrates how the building was sliced into two pieces in order to be  removed from the original site on S.W. 12th Ave.  The move was complicated by the presence of MAX and streetcar wires that limited route options, and by a pedestrian overpass that thwarted a move down S.W. Broadway.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZsWJWZnB5u/?tagged=morrismarkshouse

Here's a still image of the house early on the morning it was moved:

The new owners, Karen Karlsson and Rick Michaelson, engaged in heroic efforts to move the building and plan its restoration.  The move and most of the renovation work was undertaken by Arciform, a Portland design-build firm willing to tackle the most difficult preservation/restoration projects.

However, the restoration budget didn't allow for replacement and Corinthian capitals missing from the front porch, and for a new balustrades for the front porch.   

"I just couldn't bear to have those columns unrestored," Hawkins said.  How to pay for it?  He and Dave Talbot, a specialist in replicating historical architectural details decided to call on their lists of preservation advocates to make contributions.  The request netted $17,300, enough to get the work done.

Meanwhile Hawkins needed to figure out what the long-gone capitals looked like.  "They were a stock item in the 1880s," he said.  "You could buy decorated capitals and attach them to columns if you could afford it."  Hawkins also studied the capitals adorning pilasters near the front door, and figured how to take those "flat" details into round capitals.  The new capitals are made from cast aluminum.

The capitals and balustrade are Hawkins' only contribution to the renovation.  "They allowed me to be totally independent," he said of the owners.  "I didn't want to be intrusive.  They were very nice about it."

Given its siting on a triangular piece of ground at 2177 S.W. Broadway, the original front entrance is closed off and porch becomes perhaps Portland's most elegant deck.  Entry to the building will be from the side.  The building will be leased for offices.

The Italianate house was one of many designed by Warren H. Williams, one of Portland's most notable architects in the late 19th Century.  This was the first of two houses he designed for a successful shoe merchant, Morris Marks.  "Williams probably did hundreds of handsome houses," Hawkins said, "but now we are down to just a handful."

This is the second Williams building that has found life after what appeared to be likely death.  Back in the 1960s, early in Bill Hawkins' career, preservation enthusiasts rallied to save Williams' pioneer gothic Calvary Presbyterian Church, which we know today at the Old Church. "Fortunately, we didn't have to move the Old Church," Hawkins said.

Sadly, perhaps, most people will see this new restoration  only as they drive past, since parking is not easy on the triangle of land where it sits.  But as Dave Talbot suggested, once traffic returns to normal, people will have time to admire it while stuck in traffic jams. 

Hawkins laughed when he was reminded of the Miesian quotation in the headline of this article.  He then suggested a minor alteration: "God is in the elegant details."

History Repeats!

Nothing better can happen to a well-maintained, gracious historic building than returning to its original use.

We should stage a huge celebration, then, for reopening of the Albina Branch of the Multnomah County Library, scheduled to occur on July 1.  This magnificent Spanish-Renaissance style building with stucco walls and red tile roof at 216 N.E. Knott St. served as the Albina branch from its completion in 1912 until 1960, when library officials felt it necessary to move to a more densely-populated neighborhood.

Most recently, the 1912 building has served as the Title Wave Bookstore where the library sells unneeded or donated books.  Unlike many public buildings, this one has been nicely maintained, right down to its original interior oak woodwork and decorative plaster ceiling ornaments. Perhaps the hiatus from “active service” saved it from the egregious attempts at remodeling that afflict so many public buildings.

 

"Timely"  interior design

(We must take exception to the boringly pedestrian fluorescent lighting tubes that replaced the original fixtures  That is a relatively cheap “fix” should someone be so inspired.)

The history of the building is just as interesting as its timeless architecture.  The branch was the second of seven in Multnomah County funded by grants from Andrew Carnegie between 1911 and 1922.  Carnegie’s deal was that he would pay for construction of free public libraries if the recipients provided the land, books and staffing.

Carnegie declined to help pay for the Main Library downtown.  He wanted his libraries in neighborhoods, where young people could improve their lives by free access to information, and where immigrants could learn English and how to manage life in America. (Carnegie's family had come from Scotland when he was a teenager.)  In all, he built some 1400 libraries in the United States.  Some communities rejected his offer, based largely on a 1892 Homestead strike-breaking effort that led to 10 fatalities near the Pittsburgh steel mill. 

 

The original reading room (Multnomah County Library photo)

The unschooled Carnegie had built his fortune in the steel industry, where his profits were generated by cutting costs to be a price leader and by ruthless employment practices.  By the late 1800s, he had amassed an estate hundreds of millions of dollars.  In 1889 he published “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he said super-wealthy people should distribute their assets while they were alive to improve the public good.

Carnegie kept his word.

He knew he and his staff could not supervise all the building projects, so local architects were given the jobs.  However, Carnegie did provide suggested floor plans and two key requirements: The buildings had to have stairways to the main entrances, so visitors would feel they were being “elevated,” and there had to be prominent exterior light fixtures so visitors would feel “enlightened.”

Carnegie's donations had a major impact on the nation's library systems.  Many libraries, including Portland in the early years, were funded by subscriptions paid by library users.  Carnegie insisted that his libraries be open to the public without cost.  His libraries also pioneered the "self service" concept in which library users could make their own selections from shelves and check them out at a central desk.  This system reduced employee costs and let readers choose their own books without having to ask a librarian to select them from behind counters. 

"Elevated and enlightened" 

A young Portland architect on his way to greater prominence, Ellis F. Lawrence, designed the Albina branch.  It was one of some 500 projects he helped design during a busy career that included almost 42 years as the founder and dean of the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.  Lawrence lived in Portland and commuted to Eugene by train a few days per week until his death in 1946.

Two significant changes have occurred at the Albina branch over the years.  The library system built an addition at the rear of the building to create space for book-binding.  Carnegie's insistence on the entry stairway decades later led to the addition of an entry ramp for people with disabilities.  Neither the rear addition nor the ramp impair the original elegant architectural presence. 

Restoration of the Albina building to library use means that three of the seven Carnegie-funded buildings are still functioning as libraries.  The others are North Portland and St. Johns, both nicely restored in recent years.  Two others, East Portland and Arleta, were sold by the county and still exist but have been converted to other purposes. The Gresham library is now operated as a museum by the Gresham Historical Society and last one, South Portland, erected in 1922 well after Carnegie's death, is a neighborhood office staffed by Portland Parks and Recreation.

The county based its decision to  return to the Knott Street building in part on cost savings.  It no longer will be paying for leased space for a small branch in a shopping mall at N.E. 15th Ave. and Fremont St.  The real value, however, is returning a beautiful and historic building to a higher and better public use.

FURTHERMORE:

Time is slowly running out to comment on the Park Bureau's tentative master plan for the South Park Blocks.  If you prefer to see the blocks left uncluttered, please review this website and click on the survey box.  This is our only chance to speak out before a final plan goes tot he City 
Council.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2aa14af546b543d99225798af7c367ae

Darcelle XV Showplace

Images from National Register of Historic Places nomination 

When Walter Cole gave his first drag performance in a small tavern in Old Town in 1969, the stage consisted of two tables bolted to the floor.  The “stage lighting” came from a slide projector.

Now, more than 50 years later, the Darcelle XV Showplace has expanded into a second storefront and  erected a permanent stage with spotlights.  The glitzy-cheap-wacky decorations have grown in scope, as has Cole’s assemblage of self-sewn exotic gowns stored in the basement.

 Along the way, Cole, now 89, has become a Portland icon for developing a nightclub that attracts and charms people of all sexual persuasions.  He also has been a tireless fundraiser for many charities both related and unrelated to sexual interests and difficulties.

 Through it all, Cole “advanced gay acceptance through humor rather than violence or protest,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, historic resources program manager for the City of Portland.  Spencer-Hartle  introduced a National Register of Historic Places nomination for Darcelle’s before the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission.

 The National Register nomination relates the importance of Cole’s social  history more than the historic value of the building at 208 N.W. Third Avenue.  It details the long history of and persecution of gay nightclubs in Portland and other cities during the 20th Century.

“As a nightclub and drag venue, the aesthetic of Darcelle XV Showplace reflects the improvised, low-budget, and self-reliant illusion of glamour that resulted from its development during this era when drag was celebrated mostly behind closed doors due to gay discrimination and the threat of harassment…

Walter Cole, 1970

 “Walter Cole, as the proprietor and star drag performer of his club starting in 1969, staked his livelihood on his ability to gain straight allies. He did more than that -- he grew into his role as a community leader even as he stood up for people many disavowed at the time, including transsexuals, performers of color, lesbians, and always, drag performers. Darcelle XV is one of only two drag clubs open prior to 1970 in the United States with an owner who also performed (and is still performing!) as part of the company, and the only one still in the same location today.”

 Cole bought what was then the Demas Tavern in 1967, after urban renewal forced him to move a jazz club from downtown Portland.  It was a tough start.  “All of our gay friends wouldn’t go across Burnside because it was in Skid Road,” Cole said.  Given that it was a neighborhood best known for single men and heavy alcohol consumption, there was little reason for gay people to feel accepted.  That started to change, Cole said, when he hired a tough lesbian bartender who didn’t tolerate guff from anyone. 

" In the end, the club’s location may have enabled it more freedom in an already relatively permissive City," the historians suggest, because there were few families in the area and businesses in the vicinity didn't object to a successful entertainment venue.

According to the nomination’s historical account, “Unlike many gay bars which had a more ‘niche’ clientele, Darcelle XV Showplace was an entertainment venue, creating a place in which a wide variety of people felt comfortable together that was not exclusively a gay bar.  Many publications and other media, including mainstream radio and TV, have touted the club as ‘one of Portland’s must see establishments,’ but perhaps more importantly Darcelle XV Showplace has made a deep impact on many patrons over the years.

“Walter Cole/Darcelle is truly a cultural ambassador, offering not only an opportunity for an evening’s lighthearted fun, but underpinning that entertainment value to become known as a tireless supporter, ‘therapist,’ drag promoter, and philanthropist for the LGBTQ community in Oregon and the west coast.  Darcelle XV illustrates an era when drag helped the gay community make gay discrimination bearable. 

"Darcelle XV Showplace helped convince people that homosexuality was not to be feared or shunned. No similar venue on the west coast or even in the United States has been able to pull in both a ‘straight’ and gay clientele to a gay-owned club so successfully for so long.”

 Cole’s club is believed to the longest-running drag venue in the United States, and Cole is recognized as the nation’s oldest drag queen who still performs.

 The club has been closed during the pandemic.  Don Horn, executive director of Triangle Productions who helped prepare the National Register nomination with Kristen Minor, said the club hopes to reopen “whenever we can, to keep it going as long as possible.”

 Cole chimed in, “Forever.”

 If a state advisory committee approves of the nomination, it will be forwarded to the National Park Service for possible inclusion on the National Register.

 

 Special update:

Last week's report on the draft South Park Blocks Master Plan drew far more reader interest than any other post so far in this blog.  It shows the affection people hold for the park.

The city will accept comments on the plan only until June 29.  Please review the plan at this site, and then scroll down to the box that says "Take the Survey."  Please enter your comments after checking the various boxes.   This planning process deserves public attention.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2aa14af546b543d99225798af7c367ae

Historic elements that are in jeopardy to some degree in the draft plan: 

1. Open Space adaptable to a variety of uses for the enjoyment of all.

2. Well-defined Boundaries

3. Deciduous Trees in Ordered Ranks

4. Simple Means

5. Arched-canopies encouraging long vistas

South Park Blocks Draft Plan

A draft master plan compiled by the Portland Parks Bureau proposes significant changes that would alter the appearance and use of  the city’s historic South Park Blocks.  After several months of under-the-radar planning by consultants and a citizen advisory committee, the public finally gets a chance to weigh in – but only online at this time.

Citizen comments offered by June 29 conceivably could affect the final plan.  A current schedule calls for a final version to be presented to the City Council for possible approval in August or September.

Details of the draft are available at the following link, which includes a link to a Surveymonkey questionnaire afterward:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2aa14af546b543d99225798af7c367ae

Planners working on the project are fond of saying the draft maintains historic characteristics of the much-loved 12-block park, but they do not describe what they believe to be historic elements in any detail.  The result of the draft plan suggests a much more cluttered landscape and potential conflicts with bicyclists. 

As it stands, the draft plan would seriously impair what some park lovers believe to be the park’s historic fabric.  These proposed changes include removing of several dozen deciduous trees, adding a removable tensile canopy over much of one block on the Portland State University campus, and planting conifers  at the park’s southern border.

More puzzling yet would be slicing off 5 percent of the parks square footage along several blocks to create bike lanes for the Green Loop bicycle route, despite the city’s well-known difficulty of blending bikes in a pedestrian space at Waterfront Park.

The “good” news is that the plan calls for keeping the park’s historic canopy of deciduous trees that have shaded the park in summer and allowed natural light in the winter. However, the plan calls for removing the center row of the five straight rows that have existed at the park since it was first planted in 1877.

Laurie Matthews, a horticulturalist working for the MIG consulting firm, said removing the center row  would allow more room for the remaining trees to reach maturity.   “We really heard strong support for maintaining the tree canopy,” she said.

Matthews also recommended blending more species into the mix with the numerous American elms, but she did not specify what those could be.    “American elms are very special.  Not many species have that special characteristic.”  She said 6 to 10 other kinds of trees might be suggested later. 

An inventory made by committee of the Downtown Neighborhood Association that wants to save the park’s historic qualities concluded that the new landscape plan would take out 68 existing trees. That amounts to just over 20 percent of the existing stock. 

The tensile canopy held up by poles at PSU essentially would be more permanent than a tent but less permanent than a building.  “Permanent structures are definitely something we were told to stay away from,” said Rachel Edmonds, an MIG project manager.  The canopy would provide protection for the farmers’ markets during rainy seasons, but such a “roof” has no precedence in the park’s history.

Although the draft plan maps are not easy to interpret, it appears that 5 feet would be removed from the west side of the blocks from Montgomery to Salmon Street to provide room for bike lanes that also would extend slightly into the current 9th Avenue right-of-way.  The five feet at the western edges of those blocks currently are paved with hexagonal pavers for pedestrians.  Matthews said those walkways “are not very useable” and that most pedestrians prefer to use the center-block routes.

Nevertheless, no portions of the park’s 100 by 200 foot blocks have ever been dedicated to vehicular access.

The draft plan also suggests closure of Madison Street within the park, creating space for a “flexible programmable plaza” in the former street right-of-way.  The tentative plan also suggests “an overhead sculpture as a place-making feature” for the plaza that would attract attention and signify the plaza as a gathering space, close to entrances of the Portland Art Museum and Oregon Historical Society.

“I think that can actually bring people to our front door,” said Andrew VanDerZanden, an OHS employee who sits on the advisory committee.  Historically, the grassy, tree-covered park provided quiet spaces for pedestrians and flexible open spaces for occasional public events.  It was never intended to be a revenue-generating asset.

If people value the park for the green open spaces it provides, this is a good time to make that appreciation known.

New Fliedner Building

Chances are you’ve never heard of the New Fliedner Building in downtown Portland, let alone the “old” Fliedner that preceded it.

Yet if you go to SW 10th and Washington and look carefully at the multi-colored five-story building with the unmistakable Zig Zag Moderne detailing, you’ll probably never forget it. Zig Zag Moderne is a category of Art Deco architecture that needs no further definition once you notice all the crosshatches among the purely geometric ramblings.

Kevin Bond, a planner for Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said Zig Zag Moderne is decoration applied to a traditional building, as opposed to Streamline Moderne in which the building itself is "streamlined" with rounded corners as if it were shaped in a wind tunnel.  Bond's comments were part of a presentation to the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission seeking support for the building's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. 

The exterior we see today is a product of the fruitful mind of Richard Sundeleaf, an architect who practiced in Portland from the 1920s to the 1980s, decades when architectural fashions emerged from classical European roots to sleek, glassy modernism.  Sundeleaf’s work spanned both camps.  His best-known works today are probably the Jantzen Knitting Mills building in Northeast Portland and the Children’s Museum housed in what formerly was OMSI near the Oregon Zoo.  Old-timers will remember another Sundeleaf project, the long-gone Jantzen Amusement Park.

An interesting aspect of the “New” Fliedner is that the five-story building originally dates to 1906, and was the home for many years of the Eastern Outfitting Co., a successful clothing and department store for some 60 years.  Its proprietor, Joseph Shemanski, expressed his thanks for his success in Portland by donating the Shemanski Fountain in the South Park Blocks near Salmon Street.

In its original version, the Fliedner was a typical masonry building of the era with a heavy brick exterior.  When Eastern Outfitting outgrew its retail space at the end of the Roaring Twenties, Sundeleaf was hired to revamp the southern and western facades that face Washington and 10th Avenue.  The remodel was completed in 1931. 

What we see today, then,  looks nothing like the original building.  The “New” Fliedner is decked out with flatter but heavily colored and detailed facades with Zig Zag patterns.  There are decorative bands above the first floor and at the cornice; the second floor includes creative posts and lintels surrounding the windows; and the main entry on Washington would fit an Art Deco movie palace. 

Robert Mawson, an architectural history consultant who worked on the National Register application, called “the fabulous exteriors…great work by Sundeleaf.”  He said it is the only building downtown showing  Zig Zag Moderne styling. 

The ground floor of the building always has been used for retailing and the upper floors were used for offices.  The upper floors have been substantially gutted and have been vacant for many years.  Mawson said the new owner, a firm from Bellingham, Wash., intends to restore the upper floors for office use and return the ground floor to retail.

Matthew Roman, a member of the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission that reviewed the National Register application, said Sundeleaf is better known for having designed houses and industrial buildings rather than commercial buildings.  “I’m excited to see this building preserved.  It is a rare and unique instance downtown.”

The landmarks commission will forward the National Register application to a state advisory committee.  If that committee approves, the application will be sent to the National Park Service for final consideration.

In fact, Sundeleaf later performed another architectural magic trick in downtown Portland, just across Washington Street from the New Fliedner.  He added several floors to an older building and turned it into a 1950s glass skyscraper.  That is a story for another day.

New Chinatown-Japantown Historic District: Who Cares?

Short answer to the question above: Not enough  people to make the Portland City Council change its mind about a 200 foot height ceiling it tried to impose in 2018. 

After getting its wrist slapped by the Land Use Board of Appeals and the Oregon Court of Appeals last year (see May 6 article below for the background) the council held a hearing on May 28 aimed at resolving the matter.  Although a final council vote will not happen until July, developers, architects, a lawyer and even some members of the Asian communities expressed support for the 200 foot height.

Before the council adopted the 200-foot maximum in 2018, the city Planning and Sustainability Commission had urged a 125 foot limit.   The Court of Appeals agreed that the council had not provided justification for the taller height limit “preserving and complimenting historic resources” as required by the city’s masterplan. 

Joe Zehnder, chief planner, contended that city policies on the pedestrian realm, building uses, infill and architectural detailing provided the necessary justification.

Although the City Council is not expected to change the 200 foot height when it takes a final vote, this fight is far from over.  Mayor Ted Wheeler said the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission would continue to rule on height and massing in an attempt to make new buildings fit the context of the rather tiny, ten square-block district.

“The Landmarks Commission will continue to do our job,” declared Kristen Minor, the commission’s chair, who objected to the 200 foot limit. But she added that when the council acknowledges the possibility of excessive heights and bulk, “You send a message that our work is just an obstacle to be overcome.” 

Rulings by the commission can be appealed to the City Council, but appeals have been rare historically.  Developers don’t like losing the additional time and money to undertake appeals.  When the difference might be between a five story building and 18 stories, that expense becomes less relevant. Minor's dedication to the Landmarks Commission's role suggests the strong possibility of new conflicts between the commission and the City Council when the economy revives. 

When it was approved in the late 1980s, the district spanning Third to Fifth Avenues between Burnside and Glisan Street contained buildings mostly one to four stories, Minor said.  The tallest was seven.  Since then, new buildings of eight and 16 stories have been added. Minor said 15 story  heights are not compatible with the district's historic context. Lynn Fuchigami Parks, executive director of the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, said many Japanese recall seeing their businesses and possessions wiped out quickly by internment during World War II.  She said Japanese now envision “erasure” of the neighborhood where they once had established a foothold.  “This neighborhood means everything to the Chinese community as well,” she said.

Raymond Cheng, a director of the Lan Su Chinese Garden that lies just outside the historic district, said  garden officials originally feared that 200-foot buildings would cast shadows impairing plants and fish at the garden.  He said the board changed its position when it learned that shadow studies required by the city would prevent those problems.

Helen Ying, chair of the nearby Old Town Community Association, also supported the greater heights, as did James Wong, who described himself as a property owner and developer.

Peggy Moretti, executive of Restore Oregon, a statewide architectural preservation advocate, described the district as a “fragile historic place that could be swallowed up by out-of-scale buildings.”  She urged the city to find ways to help owners brace their buildings against earthquakes and to require owners to make improvements so buildings do not deteriorate from “benign neglect” to become eligible for demolition.  The prospect of taller buildings could be a disincentive for maintaining older buildings on valuable sites. 

The council will hold a work session on July 2 to discuss any possible changes.  The odds of the council accepting any lower heights likely are about the same as modern science proving the pandemic to be a hoax.

SOME FUN STUFF

While the pandemic endures, the Architectural Heritage Center is adding some interesting videos about Portland's architectural history.  So far, Val Ballestrem, the AHC's education manger, has narrated these productions:

A.E. Doyle, one of Portland's most productive architects in the first half of the 20th Century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=X2K81jfkUw8&feature=youtu.be

A history of Pioneer Courthouse Square and the buildings that preceded it on that block

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmwnfhrBzA0

These videos run six and seven minutes each. If our architectural history interest you, these will be enjoyable "views."

Hotel Chamberlain

The biggest and perhaps most complex restoration project in Portland for quite some time faced many challenges in meeting current building codes, replacing utilities, bolstering structural elements and reconfiguring rooms for modern needs.  Adding delays for a fast-breaking viral pandemic has made the task even tougher for the architecturally-interesting building at 509 S.E. Grand Ave.  

Problems notwithstanding, work on what is best known today as the former Schleifer Furniture store ranks as a major preservation victory and enhancement in the East Portland Grand Avenue National Historic District.  The building started life in 1907 as the Gayosa Hotel, coupled, ironically, with an earlier furniture retailer, Morgan-Atchley.  By 1917, the hotel was renamed Chamberlain, and housed residents in many of its 107 rooms until 1974.

The Schleifer firm managed the building from 1936 to 2016, and used some of the rooms after 1974 for  storage.  After Schleifer left, the new owners allowed the building to be used as a winter shelter for the homeless while planning proceeded for the renovation. 

Investors including Brad Malsin of Beam Development bought the building in 2015, and went to work on plans to remake the building.  As now envisioned, the Hotel Chamberlain will have 57 rooms above a restaurant and bar on the ground floor.  Malsin is an experienced redeveloper of old buildings on the East Side, including the Eastside Exchange,  Eastbank Commerce Center and the Olympic Mills Commerce Center.

After a prolonged period of planning and obtaining building permits, work was well underway in 2020, only to be shut down by the pandemic.  Though work undoubtedly will resume, what ultimately happens with the virus may affect the building’s future as a hotel.  There is no way to tell when the pandemic's scourge will release its grip on the hospitality industry. 

The Architectural Heritage Center defines the building’s style as French Second Empire.  In the late 18th century, that meant pieces of many earlier architectural styles jumbled together in exuberant fashion.  The Paris Opera House is perhaps the most notable example.  But what was exuberant to some, meant tastelessness  to others.  The French writer Emile Zola called Second Empire architecture “an opulent bastard child of all the styles.”

The Schleifer/Chamberlain building is a tame but charming example, one of few in Portland. The original architect is not known; the remodeling is being designed by Works Progress Architecture, a firm that has worked with Beam on other projects.  Notice the heavy lintels over the windows with exaggerated keystones, decorative frieze at cornice, and double columns of protruding bricks (called quoins) that add definition to the corners. As a contributing building in the historic district, the facades facing Stark and Grand cannot be substantially altered.  Ideally, the notable details 

Stark Street entrance 

should be highlighted by differing colors in the final paint scheme.

The foremost identifier of many Second Empire buildings, and present here, is the mansard roof with gables at the top.  The mansard roof became popular with developers in Paris, the story goes, because the city’s height limits were measured up to a building’s cornice, and did not include the roof.  Thus the mansard became a sneaky tool for adding an extra floor.

Historically, the original furniture dealer operated from a storefront facing on Grand Avenue.  It is easy to see today that a more elegant entrance was on the Stark side, with a bracketed chevron and a tall  three-panel window over the doorway.  This, no doubt, was the original entrance to the Gayosa, as it was first known.

The current plan, however, puts the hotel entry on Grand, no doubt for better visibility plus better access by automobile, bus and streetcar. 

When the renovation is finished, it will be an will make the block between Stark and Washington one of the most interesting in Portland.  The Chamberlain sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the masculine Logus Block of 1892, one of Portland’s best Richardsonian-Romanesque architectural examples.  Just across Grand Avenue is the Barber Block of 1889, which contains a veritable trove of popular Victorian era architectural details that make it a standout in the neighborhood -- or anywhere in Portland.  

Within a single block, people who take time to look at buildings will find much to delight their eyes .It will be a timeless – for now -- glimpse into the art of architecture at the turn of the 20th Century that cannot be replaced.