Builder of homes in Alameda, Irvington and Laurelhurst

William Henry Dunn was born in New York City on September 30, 1863, son of James Hickson and Gertrude Preston. He was orphaned early in life and shipped west as a child to be adopted by William H. and Phoebe C. Dunn of Marion, Iowa. On January 24, 1884, at the age of 21, he married 17-year-old Clara Bell Richardson in Marion, Iowa and listed his occupation as farmer. He and Clara lived in Marion until the early 1900s; the census of that year listed him as a livestock dealer living with wife Clara and his mother Phoebe, who was then 68 years old. Shortly after Phoebe’s death in 1901, and a public dispute about his mother’s will and his share of the inheritance, the Dunns left for Minot, North Dakota.

About 1909, the Dunns bought property and moved briefly to Nampa, Idaho, which did not work out well—an article in the Minot newspaper (Ward County Independent) quoted Dunn on the proposition of farming his new Nampa arid acreage as “the biggest fake I have ever seen”—so he and Clara returned to North Dakota. The 1910 census shows them in a rented house in Minot, and lists W.H. Dunn’s occupation as general farm labor.

Three years later, following divorce from Clara, the 50-year-old Dunn was living in Vancouver, Washington where he married 41-year-old Alpha B. McCoy, a milliner, who had also recently divorced. City directories show Dunn working for Mt. Tabor Fuel Company and the couple living in a Portland apartment at 4435 SE Belmont, then a rented home at 1629 SE 45^th.  By 1921, city directories list Dunn as a building contractor living at 1809 SE Hawthorne.

Alpha’s daughter from her first marriage, Edna, was married to John Wallace Morrin, who was also a Portland building contractor and evidently a designer. Soon the two were collaborating. Several building permits for Dunn-built homes note that J.W. Morrin drew up the plans house and W.H. Dunn built it. In 1924 mid-point in their building career, Morrin was 43 and Dunn was 61.

Dunn started his building career building the very same bungalow in multiple locations, often on the corners of blocks. His source of building plans—like so many other homebuilders busy in the Portland area—appears to have been the Universal Plan Service, which annually produced a catalog of home plans representing many different styles and budgets. Dunn’s early bungalows appear to be Plan No. 441, which included a hipped porch roof supported by columns and a front-and-center entryway.

By 1924 Dunn had moved into more complex homes, again using Universal Plan Service designs for English cottage style homes. Colonial revival homes in Irvington and Laurelhurst—designed by son-in-law J.W. Morrin and built by Dunn—appear to be twins. Perhaps Dunn’s most complex home is the one at 2405 NE 31^st, built in 1926, which is a distinctive steep-roofed triple-gable English style home, not from the Universal Plan Service.

Homebuilding in Portland in the 1920s was a boom business and both Morrin and Dunn had found their groove. By the late 1920s, The Dunns were living comfortably in a home they owned at 4136 NE 32^nd Place. During those busy years, the former livestock dealer and farm laborer built and sold the following homes:

1825 NE 51st                           February 1921

5032 NE Hancock                    June 1921

893 NE Laurelhurst Place        November 1921

514 NE Hazelfern                    July 1922

3241 NE Glisan                        July 1922 Where the Dunns lived for several years

2944 NE 21st                           April 1924

3014 NE 18^th                           July 1924

3510 NE 19th                          September 1924

2734 NE 23^rd                           January 1925

3034 NE 22^nd                           September 1925

3035 NE 22nd                         October 1925

2130 NE Siskiyou                    9-19-1926

2405 NE 30^th                           October 1926

2337 NE 32^nd Ave                    August 1927

2405 NE 31^st                            February 1928

1506 NE Siskiyou                    October 1928

2603-09 NE 15th                     January 1930 zone change required for duplexes

SE 12^th and Belmont               August 1930 Service station with J.W. Morrin (demolished)

J.W. Morrin had been busy too. He appears to have used a combination of house plans he customized from Universal Plan Service, and those of his own design. An incomplete record of homes he built includes:

445 NE Floral                           May 1922       

3704 NE 21st                           Sept 1924       

2437 NE 19th                          May 1925       

2847 NE 11th                          April 1924      

Morrin died at age 49 in October 1930, soon after the service station project at SE 12^th and Belmont. That fall, Dunn turned 67. Between his age and the Great Depression-driven collapse of the real estate market, Dunn retired from homebuilding and died the next year on October 14, 1931. Alpha died on September 27, 1937.

Dunn and his son-in-law Morrin were evidently close: Their ashes are interred side by side in the family vault at southeast Portland’s Wilhem’s Memorial Mausoleum.