AH readers know walking is the best way to observe the eastside’s century-plus houses and neighborhoods. At a slow pace, you can see the craftsmanship, the years of wear and change, the hands of five or six generations building, improving, maintaining (and sometimes not).

On our regular dog walks this summer, we’ve been watching three particular bungalows on NE Mason in the Alameda neighborhood, just a few blocks apart. All have been time travelers with their own stories and are now in transition. Two of them are essentially gone and no longer in their earlier forms; but one special little one is, at least for now.

1914 Arts and Crafts bungalow at 2503 NE Mason, September 2023.

The 1914 Arts and Crafts bungalow on the NE corner of NE 25th and Mason is a small beauty with unique and original trim and detail, both inside and out. You would remember it if you’ve seen it (we’ve never seen a house quite like it). It’s small but distinctive, has been essentially unchanged in almost 110 years, and it’s on the market now, listed by Emily Hetrick at Keller Williams.

Interior of 2503 NE Mason, September 2023. Note the coved ceiling, box beams in both rooms, beveled glass built-ins, beveled glass windows and doors, period decorative columns. Fine 110-year-old architectural detail inside and out.

A few years back, we had the good fortune to connect with family members who remember it from the 1940s and 1950s as the perfect small bungalow. Back in the day, David White remembers visiting his great aunt and uncle who lived there. Here’s a photo of their niece–David’s mother Agnes–at the front porch from 1940. That very same view is very much available today.

Agnes Coulter in 1940, front porch of 2503 NE Mason. Note distinctive window and door trim, still in place today. And of course the smiling subject and her flowers. Courtesy of David White.

David’s grandmother Isabella Coulter ran the Alameda Park Grocery at NE 27^th and Going, which we wrote a three-part series about back in 2015. By day, Isabella worked in the store. In later years, after closing time, she returned home a few blocks south to this small corner bungalow she shared with her sister and brother-in-law. Frequently, nieces and grand nephews visited the bungalow and those memories are strong and clear.

Because it is small and because it’s on a corner, we’re a little worried about its future. We’re researching its early history at the moment and will have more to share, and would be glad to introduce the new owners to its long-time-ago former family who knew and loved it well.

A few weeks later we posted the origin story of this great little bungalow, which you can read here.

A couple blocks east on the south side of the street was the Clifton bungalow, built in the summer of 1921 by Enoch Clifton, who with his brother Knute immigrated from Norway and went into the homebuilding business on Portland’s eastside, making bungalows just like this one throughout the neighborhood. Their niece Nancy Clifton lived in the home for many years up until her passing earlier this year. The bungalow was bought by Liberty NW Homes in Oregon City and all but razed—the building permit refers to the work as an “addition.”

Here’s a look at before and during.

2617 NE Mason (on the left) before, and this week. The new house utilizes the foundation and several external walls of the former bungalow.

A few blocks west, on the southwest corner of Mason and NE 23rd (pictured below), we’ve watched the small red 1915 Arts and Crafts bungalow being taken apart piece by piece. Another somewhat unusual home, this one distinctive for its center hip-roofed cupola-like second story. The new home going up incorporates the foundation, and is also considered an addition, but the permit notes “whole house to be reconfigured.” The new framing does suggest echoes of the former building.

Here’s the before and during…

4067 NE 23rd before, and this week. It could be that the new construction will mirror aspects of the former.

We appreciate that change is our constant companion: that our communities, homes and even we ourselves must adapt to be vital. We support adaptive reuse (rather than tear-down and replacement) and we celebrate it when we see it in the neighborhood.

For at least one of the bungalows on NE Mason Street, time will tell.

Note:

Summer seems to be “off season” for the blog: it’s hard to compete with sunshine and all things outdoors in Oregon. But the promise of rain and these cooler days brings us back inside. We have lots of topics for the blog this winter and fall, so even though it gets quiet around here between June and October, we won’t be a stranger in the rainy weeks and months ahead.