Portland’s largest traffic circle nearly became a commercial hub

November 3, 2024 By in Builders, Historic News Clippings Tags: , , , 9 Comments

We had been focused on the work of John W. McFadden, a homebuilder operating in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of the 19-teens and 1920s, when we bumped into an interesting thread of newspaper stories related to the big traffic roundabout known today as Coe Circle, at the intersection of NE Cesar Chavez Boulevard and NE Glisan. The circle exists at the core of the 392-acre Laurelhurst subdivision, platted in 1909, which before the turn of the last century had been prime agricultural land known as Hazel Fern Farm.

You know this place, which features the gold-leaf statue of Joan of Arc given to the City of Portland in 1925 by Portland resident Dr. Henry Waldo Coe, Oregon State Senator, personal friend of Teddy Roosevelt and advocate for WW1 soldiers. Coe chose this statute because Joan of Arc, by way of a song (Joan of Arc, They Are Calling you), spurred the courage and devotion of soldiers singing and fighting in France in 1917-1918. But that’s another story. Plus, the statue didn’t come along until Memorial Day 1925, 16 years after the circle was first platted.

Coe Circle / “Block A” and the location of the Laurelhurst Company Tract Office, from “Laurelhurst & Its Park,” published in 1912.

The 80’ radius circle in the middle of the intersection had a few incarnations before it became the roundabout we know today, and in 1923 it narrowly avoided being turned into a retail hub, launching a dispute that shook the neighborhood. Add the traffic circle—today officially a city park—to the long list of places that nearly turned out very differently, including several of our favorite Northeast Portland parks which barely missed becoming subdivisions.

Up until the early 1920s, the Laurelhurst Company operated a real estate sales office on the north side of the circle, which was then divided north-south by the Montavilla Streetcar that traveled east-west on Glisan between Montavilla and downtown. A streetcar stop / real estate office was the perfect combination. During those years, most Portlanders traveled by streetcar, which was the ideal way to access the new eastside subdivisions to peruse vacant lots and dream about building a new house.

But by 1921, surrounding neighborhood lots had been bought up and it seemed to at least one builder/developer that what Laurelhurst needed more than a real estate office at that location was a place to buy groceries.

The Laurelhurst Company closed the real estate office in November 1921 and auctioned off the property, often referred to as “Block A,” to the highest bidder: builder/developer J.W. McFadden who knew the neighborhood well from building dozens of homes there.

By Christmas 1921, McFadden’s plans to build a combined grocery, meat market and drug store on the south side of the circle with second-story apartments above, plus a filling station on the north side of the circle, ignited a battle in the neighborhood between those who liked the idea, and those who felt it compromised the residential feel of the place. McFadden hired talented local architect Ellis Lawrence, co-founder of the University of Oregon School of Architecture, to produce designs that would make the market a “handsome structure.”

Rendering of J.W. McFadden’s planned commercial hub to be located on the south side of today’s Coe Circle at NE Cesar Chavez and Glisan. From The Oregonian, December 25, 1921. The building was designed by Ellis Lawrence.

At issue was the interpretation of prohibitions on commercial buildings. Laurelhurst, like many eastside neighborhoods had racial deed restrictions and prohibitions against commercial buildings. But Block A seemed to be exempt.

From The Oregonian, December 25, 1921

A “riot” might be a bit of an overstatement, but things did get heated, with adjacent homeowners who were attorneys filing an injunction against McFadden’s plans. Even Olaf Laurgaard, Portland’s City Engineer who lived in Laurelhurst on Royal Court, came out against the proposal and suggested a fix.

The case moved through Multnomah County Circuit Court in early 1922 and eventually the opponents lost: McFadden won the case that the commercial prohibitions did not apply to Block A. After all, the Laurelhurst Company had operated its commercial real estate office there for at least a dozen years.

From The Oregonian, March 5, 1922

The day after the circuit court decision, attorney-homeowners petitioned Portland City Council to seek other means by eliminating the circle altogether and turning it into a city street thus scuttling McFadden’s development plans. City Engineer Laurgaard’s fingerprints begin to show in this approach. Must have been a fine line to walk both as concerned neighbor and city official in charge of street engineering.

The case percolated through city politics that spring and summer, but by August 1922, Laurgaard and development opponents had figured out a course of action that involved the city buying out McFadden’s interest using mostly one-time special assessment funds paid by Laurelhurst residents and a token amount paid by the streetcar company. In August, City Council passed an ordinance codifying the “compromise.” McFadden dropped his plans, Laurelhurst neighbors paid their one-time special assessment to buy Block A, and the city added its latest city park.

From The Oregonian, August 24, 1922.

The Joan of Arc statue came along in 1925. Next time you pass by, note that it’s not in the middle of the circle, but slightly to the south because at the time, the streetcar still passed directly through the middle as it traveled along Glisan Street. As you make the round, tip your hat to City Engineer Laurgaard and the neighbors who pushed for the park, and the early generation of Laurelhurst residents who paid their special assessment to make it happen.

For the record, builder John Wesley McFadden went on to become one of Portland’s more prolific and respected residential builders in Laurelhurst, Alameda and other northeast neighborhoods. During Portland’s building boom period of the 1920s, in addition to high-profile homes, apartment buildings and movie theaters, the J.W. McFadden Company built dozens of middle market and entry level bungalows on Portland’s eastside, mostly using designs and blueprints produced by the Universal Plans Service.

In 1931, McFadden built “Bobbie’s Castle,” a scaled-down bungalow memorial to the famous Silverton-area collie dog that walked 2,800 miles from Indiana back to its owners in Oregon. Bobbie was buried at the Oregon Humane Society in Northeast Portland, and McFadden’s memorial to him—a small house—was located at the dog’s grave there.

In 1937—at age 56—McFadden joined with financial backers to create Modern Builders, Inc. to build multiple apartment buildings in southeast and southwest Portland. He died in Portland at age 68 on February 3, 1950.

Saturday, September 21 program at AHC: The Builders

September 13, 2024 By in Builders Tags: , , Leave a comment

Next Saturday morning, September 21st, we’ll be at the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland to present a new program called The Builders. Illustrated with photos, newspaper clippings, maps, interviews and stories–and drawing on our growing collection of builder biographies–we’ll share a sense of the people and the process of building, marketing and buying the houses that are now entering their second century. Tickets are still available, register online or contact AHC for more information.

Builders working on an eastside bungalow in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, Negative 37092.

When the Columbia River froze

August 25, 2024 By in Old Photos, Photo Detective Tags: , , , , 13 Comments

This summer we’ve been sharing some of the interesting photos from the von Homeyer collection: a big batch mostly of family photos from the late 1890s through the 1950s. Everything from glass plate negatives to Brownie snapshots. The von Homeyers liked to take pictures!

Mingled in the collection are images of interesting places or moments that piqued our curiosity and got us wondering: when – where – what?

Here’s couple of winter images that led to a bit of old newspaper sleuthing. When we first saw this we thought: Broadway Bridge? But on second look, the setting and the structure didn’t seem right. Of note: the streetcar passing on the decks overhead. The date seemed important to the photographer and it turned out to be a helpful clue.

From the Oregon Journal, January 26, 1930.

According to the Vancouver Columbian newspaper, it wasn’t so unusual for the Columbia River to freeze over completely, including the “Big Freeze” of 1909 that halted commerce, mail delivery and ferry traffic across the Columbia between Vancouver and Portland.

Hans von Homeyer captured this view of the ferry Vancouver and the frozen Columbia River in January 1909. With no bridge (it came along in 1917), and no ferry service to towns both upstream and downstream, frigid winter weather in January 1909 caused hardship throughout the frozen region.

Here’s a deeper history of ferry service between Vancouver and Portland, from the Clark County Historical Society.

Hard to imagine from the sunshine and warmth of this t-shirt summer, but snow and ice will return.

Old glass negatives allow glimpse of lost time and place in Northeast Portland

July 18, 2024 By in Old Photos, Photo Detective, Research Tags: , , , 5 Comments

Six glass plate negatives from 1908 retrieved from the basement of the von Homeyer house in Northeast Portland tell a story about a setting, home and family life that have become extinct but not forgotten.

The first von Homeyer house in northeast Portland at 850 Going Street (today’s NE 27th and Going), from a glass plate negative. Hans O.S. von Homeyer on the roof with sons Hans W.S., and Irvin Erwin Frederick. At the back steps: Minnie and daughter Gretchen. View looking toward the northwest, about 1908.

The glass plates are some of the thousands of photos unearthed by new owners Michael and Jaylen Schmitt earlier this year as they prepared the house for overhaul and adaptive reuse. This winter and spring, we helped the Schmitts sort, organize and add context to the mountain of photos and documents that had accumulated in the house over the last century.

In May after careful review of each image, we sent more than 30 pounds of old photos “home” to the next generation of family members who had never seen many of these long-passed great aunts, uncles, grandparents and family scenes. Duplicates and some others (including the glass plates) went to an estate sale that helped clear out the house in May. A select few of the photos and documents will remain behind with the house going forward.

But these six are special, because they are so old and fragile, and because after some detective work, we now know what they depict.

The first time we saw them this winter, we knew they might be some of the most interesting images in the entire collection: they showed a young family’s connection with an old house–something always near to our hearts.

The von Homeyers at 850 Going: Erwin and Hans at left; Hans, Minnie and Gretchen on the front porch. Looking southwest about 1908.

They showed wide open spaces around the house, hinting at things to come.

The von Homeyers at 850 Going: Hans, Hans and Erwin on the porch; Minnie and Gretchen at the side. No sidewalks, dirt streets and wide open lots all around. Looking east-southeast about 1908.

They showed the home’s interior, three children in the foreground, columns and windows behind.

Gretchen, Hans and Erwin at the bay window, 850 Going Street, about 1908.

And they showed a builder at work upstairs. The backlighting from the second floor window makes it difficult to see, but the carpenter’s square, saw and plane behind him, hammer in hand, and the at-work stance of the human subject, come through clearly.

Hans von Homeyer at work, upstairs at 850 Going, about 1908.

As glass plate negatives go, they are a tad hard to read if you just pick them up for a quick look. Thick with emulsion, it takes a lot of light to reveal the negative image. Which might be one of the reasons why they survived the estate sale: people couldn’t tell what they were seeing.

We made prints and stared at them for a long time. Where is this place, we wondered.

Over the winter, as we continued looking at hundreds of family photos and began to recognize particular people and places, and as we researched the von Homeyer family story, a common thread began to tie some pieces together: this house.

First, we found this paper image in one of the old photo albums. It’s a “Real Photo” postcard showing two generations of a family out front of a tidy house.

This Real Photo postcard was sent from Hans to brother-in-law Karl Tripp about 1909, looking southwest. Minnie and Gretchen at left; Hans center with Hans and Erwin; two unknown visitors. A few more nearby houses and a new coat of paint.

The glass negatives show a slightly earlier version of the house, before paint, less landscaped, a little rough around the edges, but definitely the same place. By 1909 and the postcard to Karl, the von Homeyer home at 850 Going was looking pretty tidy.

Do-it-yourself cards like this were first offered by Kodak in 1903 and almost immediately blew up in popularity as friends and families exchanged their own photos and brief greetings through the postal mail. An early and s l o w version of sharing photos and a few well chosen words across distance. Something families still like to do today. Here’s more about how Real Photo postcards transformed photography between 1905-1915.

This one was sent by the first Hans O.S. von Homeyer (1871-1942), father of Hans W.S. von Homeyer (1898-1969) who built the house at NE 24th and Mason, grandfather of the brothers Karl and Hans E. von Homeyer (1927-2002) who lived in the Mason Street house all their lives. Hans the elder sent the card to his brother-in-law Karl in Chicago, Minnie’s brother. The message on the back was in German which we can’t read, so we sent a picture of the almost undecipherable longhand script to our friends Christiane and Roland in Germany for quick translation. They wrote back immediately with the 110-plus year-old postcard greeting that made us smile:

“Dear Karl, we are all still alive and frisky. How are you? With best greetings from all of us to all of you.”

The card was signed “H. von Homeyer, 850 Going Street, Portland, Ore.” which of course also piqued our interest, knowing that Going Street makes its long east-west transit through today’s King, Vernon, Concordia and Cully neighborhoods. We’ve looked at enough old east-west addresses to know 850 was going to be about 27 blocks east of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and would probably end up in the Elberta Addition.

If you search for that address in pastportland.com (which is one of the very best tools for converting between pre-address change addresses and today) it comes up empty. Plenty of numbers either side, but no 850.

We looked for 850 in the 1909 Sanborn Maps, but this block and several others nearby were still unbuilt brushy vacant lots with dirt roads scratched into the ground. Sanborns were used by fire insurance underwriters to gauge fire risk based on the presence of fire hydrants, distance from fire stations and types of construction materials and heating systems used by various buildings. But out near 27th and Going in 1909, there weren’t any buildings that needed insurance underwriting. So, it wasn’t mapped.

Next we began nosing around The Oregonian and the Oregon Journal, both of which are searchable by word going way back if you have a library card. News stories, letters to the editor from Hans and other mentions began turning up, confirming the von Homeyer’s presence there.

Then we found this buried in the real estate transaction list: Hans and Minnie buying a vacant lot in the Elberta Addition for $350 in late July 1907.

From The Oregonian, July 29, 1907

That gave us a lot and block number and a place to look. So we downloaded the Elberta plat from the Multnomah County Surveyor’s office, and began trial-and-error looking on Portlandmaps.com for block and lot details in that vicinity. We quickly found lots 1 & 2 of Block 17 today–the northeast corner of 27th and Going–but the pre-address-change address for that place says 848 and what’s there today doesn’t look anything like the postcard.

We began to note that after 1910, all references to 850 Going stop. Going, going gone. So how come 850 shows up in some news stories and on the postcard, but then disappears? We had a hunch.

The next newspaper story we found made it clear:

From The Oregonian, September 20, 1909. Creative spelling.

Glancing back and forth between the post card picture and the glass plates, with the fire story in mind, the realization struck: the images on the old glass and the postcard print were showing the same house: the first von Homeyer home, built in 1907 after they arrived in Portland from Chicago. In September 1909, it burned to the ground.

Eerily, Hans von Homeyer foreshadowed what might happen to their new home on Going Street. In a letter to the editor of the Oregon Journal the year before, signed on behalf of area residents, Hans gave voice to frustrations with the city about lack of water pressure in their part of the neighborhood, and worries about the fire safety of the huge wood-frame Vernon School just up the street, where their children attended.

From the Oregon Journal, April 13, 1908

In June 1911, Hans and Minnie sold Going Street and took up residence in a spacious Craftsman-style house on NE San Rafael just east of today’s Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The kids were growing and so was their business. Later, the von Homeyers moved to Vancouver where their story continued.

Have a good look at the 1908 surroundings as you think about the corner of NE 27th and Going today. Just across the street is the former dry goods store. The streets were unpaved gravel, no curbs or sidewalks until 1913. On the property where the von Homeyer house stood, a new home was built: the late Queen Anne Victorian that stands today, known as the Going Queen. Today, that intersection is all concrete streets and sidewalks, topography leveled off, no vacant lots in sight.

Aside from the small miracle of their basic survival all these years is the reality these glass plate negatives somehow made it through the fire or were carried out of the burning house they depict: the news story reported “most of the effects were saved.”

For extra credit, the six glass plates also made it through the estate sale in May. No one was interested in them, so after the sale they made it to the dregs pile that Michael was going to have to deal with one way or another. When we learned this, we very happily rescued them from the dregs. Now they’re in a safe place.

The last of the six glass plates–smaller in size, made a little bit later in a different location–may be the most wonderful, showing youngest sister Marguerita Anna “Gretchen” von Homeyer on a porch, bow in her hair, standing near an ivy-covered column, looking off toward the future. Probably taken in about 1913. She was eight years old.

Marguerita Anna “Gretchen” von Homeyer about 1913.

The end of Willamette River Swimming: An infamous 100th anniversary

July 11, 2024 By in Historic News Clippings, Research, Willamette River Tags: , , , Leave a comment

It’s been over a year since we’ve written about Willamette River swimming at Windemuth and at Bundy’s Baths on the eastbank in the vicinity of Ross Island. There’s an important anniversary coming up for Windemuth, plus we’ve learned a few more things (and found some more photos), so it’s time to say a bit more.

If you don’t yet know about Windemuth and Bundy’s Baths, be sure to follow those links and while you’re doing that, check out this great set of old photos and memories about canoeing the Willamette downtown during the summer of 1919. We’ve been haunting these places and the archives this summer to learn more about the hold they had on Portland’s soul, which was something.

Briefly: Windemuth was a huge two-story floating swimming tank, diving venue and dance floor anchored off the north end of Ross Island (before the bridge, which was built in 1926) that held more than 500 people. It was so popular in the 19-teens and 1920s there were times it rode low in the water, packed with so many people.

Swimmers at Windemuth. Angelus Studio photographs, 1880s-1940s, University of Oregon, Oregon Digital.  PH037_b012_AG00052

Earlier–dating back into the 1890s–Bundy’s Baths was the place to meet your friends, rent your swimming togs, and play in the water at river’s edge.

To the infamous anniversary: 100 years ago this month, Willamette River water was so polluted with sewage and human waste that City Health Officer George Parrish recommended Portland City Council pass an ordinance banning all Willamette River swimming in Portland. At the time (and up until 1952) all of the city’s raw sewage poured directly into the Willamette from nine major sewer outfalls. By 1924 it was a serious human health problem, as well as a wider environmental menace.

The topic came before council in mid-July 1924 because Windemuth was required to be relicensed in order to open to the public, a process that involved gaining an endorsement from the City Health Officer. The giant floating swimming platform had already opened that June to much fanfare, with relicensing just a bureaucratic box to check.

The place had become an institution: when Portlanders thought about being in the water (which in those days they did frequently) their first thought was the Willamette and Windemuth. It was the premier swimming venue in the city, the place for diving competitions, as well as being a top-flight social scene (think dancing at night to a live orchestra on a floating dance floor in the middle of the river).

Diving at Windemuth. Angelus Studio Photographs, 1880s-1940s, University of Oregon, Oregon Digital. PH037_P362

City Health Officer Parrish and Chief Sanitary Inspector Gordon Lang brought their findings into council on the day of the relicensing hearing: record-breaking levels of fecal coliform bacteria and low levels of dissolved oxygen. Beyond just not endorsing Windemuth, Parrish recommended council craft an ordinance prohibiting all river swimming.

Of course, banning swimming in the Willamette in Portland would mean the end of Windemuth, and as The Oregonian reported “None of the members of the council felt inclined to rob the Windemuth company of its business…” So council punted, ordering Parrish and Lang to take another set of samples to verify the earlier readings.

Nine days later, the relicensing question was back before council, with Parrish and Lang reporting levels hadn’t gotten any better. Between a rock and hard place now, council deferred action on relicensing Windemuth and directed Parrish and Lang to confer with Windemuth owner John Jennings to see what could be worked out regarding finding an alternative location. Council also raised the existential question of whether or not it even had the authority or the duty to ban swimming.

From the Oregon Journal, July 24, 1924

But Jennings saw the writing on the wall. People had lost confidence in the river. Record-breaking levels of bacteria in the Willamette were in the news every day. Parents told their kids not to swim in the river. And as water levels dropped in late July and temperatures rose, the Willamette didn’t look or smell very enticing.

On Sunday, July 27, 1924, Jennings announced he was voluntarily closing Windemuth. It was the end of an era. Portlanders got out of the river in the summer of 1924, mourned the loss, and stayed out until not so long ago.

From the Oregon Journal, August 5, 1924

100 years later, a resurgence of interest in Willamette River swimming and much healthier and desirable conditions now beckon Portlanders back into the water, reminding us about what was lost, what has been gained back, and how we must never again take our river for granted.

Willamette River sunset near the former location of Windemuth.

2,000 gallons of ice cream

July 8, 2024 By in Historic News Clippings Tags: , , Leave a comment

The current heat wave sent us looking for insight about Portlanders’ response to hot summers in history. We know temperatures are hotter than 100 years ago, but hot is still hot, and the community wilts a bit during these intense days. Noticed how much quieter the neighborhoods are these afternoons? We’d gladly exchange this week’s 100s for 94 degrees.

From 105 years ago, here’s how Portlanders managed their hot days, along with advice about what to eat and drink (click to enlarge). We smile at the precision from The Oregonian reporter about what it takes to cool the city. Be sure to appreciate the Lillian B. Roberts poem at bottom right.

And remember these other extremes from not so long ago…

From The Oregonian, July 19, 1914

Photos connect families and places across time

July 5, 2024 By in Old Photos, Then and Now Tags: , 6 Comments

The von Homeyer house at 24th and Mason in Alameda has been a repository for many things over the last 100 years, some of which we’ve mentioned in past posts: cars, board games, clothing, tools, documents, sheet music. The estate sale in May presented an astounding cornucopia of items.

Among the many treasures yielded up by that packed house were hundreds and hundreds of photos, some of which date back more than 120 years, offering views of Portland—and of life in general—which are worthy of note, many which would be personally important to family members. If we could find them.

The von Homeyer family in front of their rented home on NE San Rafael just east of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, about 1915. Hans von Homeyer standing in the back row, his father Hans in the back at far right. About 12 years later, Hans and Frances would name their eldest son Hans…who grew up in the Alameda house. The house in the background of this photo still stands today, though the family home on the south side of San Rafael has been razed.

Some of the photos led us down faint rabbit trails seeking deeper insight, like the glass negatives of a family in its new house surrounded by wide-open fields, or the daredevil pilot who landed his plane on the ice beneath the span of a bridge, or the proud employees and their shiny fleet of delivery vehicles parked out front of the family business. We’ve figured out these stories and will share them in upcoming posts.

AH readers know we love photographs like this and have made it our practice and passion to connect past and present through old photos. Check out the Photo Detective and Old Photos categories here and you’ll see what we mean.

Other 100-plus-year-old photos revealed places still standing and recognizable amid utterly different human landscapes:

Young Hans von Homeyer’s 8th grade graduation from Alameda School, June 1941 (he’s at bottom right).

This winter and spring, as the busy new owners of the von Homeyer house sorted through barely accessible pathways in the crammed house, Michael would call us to come pick up another bag and another box and another bigger box of photos and items they had unearthed that we were helping him sort. Beautiful family photos of special moments that had once meant a great deal to someone. And here they were without context, names, locations or anyone to try to understand them.

The Westhoff family of Vancouver about 1910

We spread them out on our dining room table and began to look back at them and get to know the faces, their surroundings and the visible family relationships. Next, we sorted by era, location and family group. Handy genealogy tools like censuses, marriage, birth and death certificates—combined with trusty other tools like building permits, old maps, newspapers, and city directories—helped us piece together a visual narrative that followed specific family lines and chronologies. We felt like we were getting to know these people.

When we found houses or buildings we thought might still exist, we tracked them down, finding and then decoding addresses from Portland’s former street addressing system. We even knocked on a few front doors in the Portland area to pass along hundred-year-old views to surprised current residents (that was fun).

4246 NE Flanders, home of Frances’s cousin, about 1921. After figuring out its location, we gave this and several other photos to the current residents.

One of the humbling privileges of research like this is to watch as families grow and change before your eyes. Energetic, fresh newlyweds become grandparents. Young children gradually emerge as adults and then they are the elders. We’ve often experienced this compression of time while researching census and other paper documents, but with family photos it’s so much more impactful, reminding us of the brief time we actually have with each other. Blink. Change is our constant companion.

Gradually this spring we became visually acquainted with the people who inhabited the von Homeyer house, and their extended and earlier family members, many who lived in Vancouver. Two curated collections began to emerge from hundreds of beautiful portraits and heirloom photos of Frances Westhoff von Homeyer’s parents, siblings, grandparents, and of Hans’s immigrant parents, his siblings, and their businesses.

After multiple unsuccessful attempts at finding extended family members who might be interested in receiving these photos, a lucky break revealed contact information for two of Frances’s nieces, now both in their 80s. Their dad, grandparents, great grandparents and aunts and uncles—and so many family moments—were here on our dining room table; photos that hadn’t been seen or appreciated by family members for decades.

After a few phone conversations with the nieces–and the blessing and encouragement of new homeowners Michael and Jaylen Schmitt—we packaged up the hundreds of Westhoff family photos (almost 30 pounds) and shipped them off to the elderly nieces. Delighted emails and letters followed as they became reacquainted with faces they hadn’t looked into for a lifetime–many photos they had never seen–including pictures of their long-passed father as a boy.

A similar but slightly smaller collection of photos from the von Homeyer side of the family still awaits placement. Because brothers young Hans and Karl never had children, and the family tree branches on their father’s side appear to be short or no longer in existence, these photos may remain solely as artifacts from their time. A smaller collection with views of the house and neighborhood will join the architectural drawings and other documents that stay with the house.

Note to self about old photos in your collection: talk with people now who know those elder faces and places. Write gently in pencil on the backs of those photos. Scan and share the images with other family members. As time passes, the family landscape and the surroundings we know so well today will evolve, landing these photos at the far edge or beyond understanding and recognition. Like the collections unearthed from the von Homeyer house, today’s ubiquitous family photos and snapshots may well be precious messengers across time for future generations.

Brothers Erwin and Hans von Homeyer about 1916

Closing up the front porch

June 17, 2024 By in Research Tags: , 2 Comments

It’s been a fascinating journey so far to understand the story of the von Homeyer house at NE 24th and Mason. The original construction drawings and early photos, the story of the brothers who lived in the house all their lives, and now interesting insights about the front porch, which was enclosed more than 65 years ago.

Maybe you’ve seen the before and after photos that can’t help but make you contemplate earlier days (click in for a a closer look):

Check out the original front porch from the 1920s photo on the left, and as it appears today. Current homeowner Michael Schmitt says he hopes to set the original porch free as he adapts the house for its next century.

As it turns out, the porch was covered over in January and February 1959. We know this according to a request we filed for historic building permits from the Bureau of Development Services, which is something every history-inclined homeowner can do as a way of knowing why things are the way they are today.

To be sure, a good percentage of minor work done on our old houses may have been done without permit, leaving no paper trail. But in this case, adding new exterior walls is documented both with a building permit (issued downtown by the Bureau of Buildings), and an inspection card (filled out in the field by the building inspector). Have a look:

This $350 construction job was done in January 1959 by Harold Burbach using sheeting, siding and aluminum slider windows (but without cutting any new openings on the existing exterior walls or altering the French doors). Evidently the inspector attempted to mark the job as completed during visits in August 1959 and then January 1961, but received no response.

The newly enclosed space created an alcove off the piano teaching studio used by Frances von Homeyer and her many students, perhaps a place to store sheet music, of which Frances had a lot. We’re working on understanding the wide impact Frances’s music and teaching had here in the neighborhood and across Portland, which appears to be significant.

Our request to the Bureau of Development Services for historic building permits and documents also yielded the original 1925 permit and an inspection card that records a straightforward construction process. Both confirm the house was built by Kilgreen and Company for $3,780, that it was built for Hans von Homeyer (who was then living across the river in Vancouver…Frances is not mentioned), and that by Christmas 1925 construction was entering the final stages.

You can request your building permit and inspection cards online (the helpful folks at Resource Records will send you PDFs of any documents in the file for your house) which costs $15. Just a heads up: in our experience about 10-15 percent of houses don’t have any historic permitting documents, or very few…record keeping was not great before the 1920s.

If you do make the request online, you’ll need to provide the county property number for your house, which you can find under the “Assessor Detail” on portlandmaps.com when you look up your address (it starts with an R). If you do go to portlandmaps (which is an amazing data-rich resource), be sure to check out the link to “historic plumbing permits” for your address. These can be just as enlightening as building permits about original owner, builder and pre-address change address, with bonus details about cesspools, vent stacks and all manner of early 1900s plumbing techniques.

There are other resources to learn more about your house and its former occupants. Here’s the list we suggest. This kind of detective work is fun and can lead to all kinds of insights. At our house, it allowed me to find the little boy who grew up here, which led to his photos from 1917 and insights that directly shaped how we rebuilt our front porch, which was the very first post that got AH started way back in 2007.

The next stories from the von Homeyer house will be people stories: Frances and the piano, the amazing photo archive, and interesting images from the early 1900s in Portland and Vancouver. Thanks again to Michael and Jaylen Schmitt who have invited us along on this journey.

Trove of documents provide insight into 1920s von Homeyer House construction

May 30, 2024 By in Alameda Park, Old House History Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

Last month we began a series of stories about the prominent yellow stucco home in the Alameda neighborhood at the confluence of NE 24th, Mason and Dunckley streets. In our first installment, we met the house and its most recent residents–the von Homeyer brothers–at the close of almost a century of that family’s occupancy.

The home was built by their newlywed parents Hans and Frances in 1925-1926 and occupied until recently by the youngest son Karl, now in his 90s. Older brother Hans (referred to as “Hansey” to distinguish him from the father Hans and the grandfather Hans) lived in the house all his life too, and died in 2002.

Because both generations of the family saved so many things–particularly paper–we can gain a special insight into the homebuilding process of the 1920s that has been lost to time for most other homes of this vintage.

For instance, an early sketch of the house by architect Ragnar Lambert Arnesen, on onion skin paper, along with a floorplan.

Arnesen, then a 29-year-old immigrant from Stockholm, worked with Killgreen and Company, a design-build commercial and residential construction firm that started up in 1925 at the peak of Portland’s homebuilding business (by the way, the Swedish influence on Portland homebuilding is significant). By 1930, Arnesen had relocated to Dearborn, Michigan, and Killgreen and Co. had been shuttered by a collapsing economy. 

Hans von Homeyer was 27 years old in 1925 and busy establishing himself. He might have come across Arnesen and Killgreen from an advertisement in The Oregonian, like this one from April 19, 1925:

Hans was in business with his brother and his parents who owned multiple cleaning and dyeing shops in Portland and Vancouver, so his own network was wide…maybe that’s how he came across Killgreen. We’ll share more about the von Homeyer family business in future posts because it’s a very interesting story and the photos are fascinating as well.

Hans and Frances Westhoff, daughter of a Vancouver clothier family, were engaged to be married and looking to start their family and home in Northeast Portland. They found the lot in the Alameda neighborhood (which was then only about half built-up), engaged Killgreen and its architect Arnesen, took out a mortgage, and got down to the business of planning and construction.

Arnesen’s early sketch led to the set of blueprints:

An important note: in the time between the first sketch and the blueprints, the primary shared living space in the home went from “Liv. Rm D.R.” to “Studio Living Room,” a hint of a much larger story.

Frances, then just 24, was an accomplished pianist building her own network as a well-known and respected piano teacher. She needed a studio to house her piano, two organs and teaching space. Ultimately, the house was designed to accommodate piano teaching and performance, which flourished in the years that followed. We’ll write more about Frances and her piano in future posts. Her gift for music touched hundreds of students–everyone in Alameda and surrounding neighborhoods knew her and plenty learned and played in that big room. Her music defined that space for so many years.

Back to the ad hoc archive of what the von Homeyers saved that allows us a view into the homebuilding process:

The contract–a signed agreement between Hans and Killgreen dated October 2, 1925 for the total cost of design and construction: $3,780, paid on completion of the house, with $500 at signing of the contract, $540 each week for five weeks and $500 upon completion of construction.

A copy of the receipts from Killgreen for each payment:

The bank receipt book from Equitable Savings and Loan with the monthly mortgage payment stubs for $50.95, paid through May of 1930:

Thirteen pages of written specifications for construction of the house that accompanied the blueprints and pertained to every detail including the amounts and types of sand, mortar and lime that would be used for brickwork:

A detailed listing of all house wiring components installed by electricians (one of our favorites):

The contract with General Heating Company for installation of the furnace: $213.32:

And perhaps the most important document, a receipt from piano mover Maddox Transfer dated April 17, 1926, which is a good indication of when the couple–and Frances’s piano–moved into the house:

In addition to the many receipts, contracts, correspondence and other documents related to construction, several photographs from the winter and spring of 1926 document the process.

Construction clutter indicates work still underway

Almost done. The small building in the parking strip is a saw shed, which housed the builder’s tools and supplies. Saw sheds were common on residential construction sites.

The finished home, addressed as 878 East 24th Street North, before Portland’s Great Renumbering.

How unusual it is to be able to see all these moving parts associated with the homebuilding process from the 1920s. Not so different from business agreements, loans, waivers and releases today. But more personal, more detailed, more bespoke than the computer printouts of today.

That the family kept them together in a set of files all these years–along with the abstract of title, the deed and other documents–signifies their importance, a kind of family trove of sacred documents. Now, they’re all organized and safe and will be staying with the house going forward.

Horses Rising

May 26, 2024 By in Observed Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

We’ve noticed a marked increase lately in the neighborhood horse population:

A northeast Portland micro herd.

Could be nostalgia, whimsy, a salute to the animals that first made these neighborhoods possible, a response to our growing coyote population. Speculate as you will, but there is definitely something going on.

This happy trend reminded us about a deeper look we made a few years back into those iron rings cast into our curbs, called “horse tethering rings,” which for a time were mandated by city ordinance as a way of making Portland streets safer. Widely used well into the 1920s before cars took over, tethering rings have traveled the full arc from vital to useless, from problematic to quaint, and now to cool.

Since it appears more and more horses are waiting patiently at our curbs, we thought it would be good to remind ourselves about the tethering rings, and to celebrate a uniquely Portland sensibility.

Check out the story of Portland’s horse tethering rings.