Homes & Gardens Northwest

01/11/2023

Fans of the kid-empowerment movie “The Goonies” have swarmed the tiny Oregon city of Astoria for decades to see the hilltop house central to the plot of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film.

Entrepreneur Behman Zakeri, a 46-year-old “Goonie,” which he defines as someone who stays loyal to friends, was devoted enough to pay $1,650,777 to buy the private house and he has a childlike fantasy to open it to others.

Behman Zakeri paid $1,650,777 to buy the private house and he has a child-like fantasy to open it to others.

09/14/2022

Beatrice Morrow Cannady, one of Oregon’s most prominent civil rights activists who challenged the Ku Klux Klan and discrimination in the early 1900s, lived and worked in a Craftsman house in Portland that’s for sale.

During a real estate open house last weekend, listing agent and the home’s owner Ana de la Rua Domenech of Living Room Realty spoke to several visitors she describes as “history buffs.”

She also met a woman who has written a scholarly paper on Cannady, a Black newspaper editor and founding member of the Portland branch of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

Cannady published the Advocate newspaper in the attic, which is now a family room and office, said listing agent Ana de la Rua Domenech.

09/14/2022

Oregon preservationists are applauding that a vacated church has become an inviting event center, an old bank is a bustling brew pub, and new energy-wise buildings alongside historic structures are adding to an area’s diversity and growth.

To highlight how rural and big city downtowns can change from easy-to-ignore to robust, the Restore Oregon organization has selected 11 restoration projects to receive a 2022 DeMuro Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation.

Eleven restoration projects from Portland to Bend to La Grande receive the DeMuro Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation.

09/12/2022

Real estate agents generally specialize in areas where homes come in many styles, from classic to contemporary. Jeff Weithman of (W)here focuses on modern dwellings across Oregon, constructed in the midcentury to present day with glass walls and easy indoor-outdoor living.

Modernist architecture was introduced to most people when structures of steel and reinforced concrete rose up after World War II. Why does it continue to appeal to home shoppers today?

Well-designed, dramatically spare, landscape-framing modern houses typically sell fast in Oregon.

09/11/2022

Northeast Portland’s famous Caravan-The Tiny House Hotel, popular with people wanting to test out living in a space smaller than a parking spot, has closed.

Two of the original tiny homes on wheels are for sale.

Caravan, the world’s first collection of rentable micro dwellings built on trailers, opened in 2013 on a former parking lot at 5009 N.E. Alberta St.

The inventive lodging soon had imitators around the globe, and was touted by tiny house living blogs and shows as part of the movement to live simply with few possessions.

Caravan-The Tiny House Hotel co-founder Deb Delman rents the 160-square-foot Pacifica house, built on a travel trailer by Zyl Vardos and moved to her Portland residence, on Airbnb.

09/08/2022

Portland was fortunate to attract architects early on, setting the stage for handsome buildings and astute residents who appreciate great design.

Two historic mansions in Portland for sale showcase how a century-old home with original quality features can be updated for modern living. Both have classic Tudor Revival exteriors with storybook dormers popping from steeply pitched roofs, and decorative dark timber dressing up stucco walls.

These century-old homes for sale have original features and remodeled floor plans.

09/05/2022

The fabled Fogelbo log home in Southwest Portland, built by the Steiner family of craftsmen and stonemasons during the Great Depression, will be open for autumn tours on Oct. 7-8.

Visitors will learn about the chalet-style house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and see one of the largest private collections of Nordic antiques and folk art in the United States.

Tickets ($30, $10 for children) are limited, and only 12 people will be in each of the six tour groups.

Visitors to Fogelbo House will see one of the largest private collections of Nordic antiques and folk arts in the United States.

09/04/2022

Selling a home can feel like taking one of your most personal possessions and largest assets, and tossing it into the air, hoping the right buyer catches it. Nothing, it seems, is as emotional, financially important and puzzling as putting a residential property on the market.

No matter how long it’s been since you last sold a house — typically, it’s been eight years, says the National Association of Realtors — a lot has changed.

No matter how long it’s been since you last sold a house — typically, it’s been eight years, says the National Association of Realtors — a lot has changed since then.

09/02/2022

Adding two income-producing rentals or self-contained guest homes next to an existing house on a city lot continues to get easier in Oregon.

Factory-made compact dwellings, complete with windows and paint, are being delivered to driveways, then hoisted or rolled onto a new foundation. Pre-made covered porches and decks are then attached to the structure like Lego pieces.

Other companies are selling packaged accessory dwelling unit (ADU) plans and building materials in an updated version of the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward mail-order house kits sold more than a century ago.

Prefabricated accessory dwelling units (ADUs) manufactured in a factory and hauled in a flatbed trailer to the prepared site are options to homeowners.

08/30/2022

Low-cost, low-barrier housing will soon be a reality for those who can’t afford a place to live due to their criminal history, addiction or mental health issues.

08/30/2022

First responders train hard to prepare for wildfires and other disasters. Residents need to do the same, according to the Klamath County Fire Agencies that compiled the online Oregon’s Ready Set Go guide to reduce the risk of a fire harming people and property.

People who have been evacuated know there is no extra time to figure out what to take. And those in a rush may forget a vital item or bring too much.

Shelters most likely have food, water, first-aid supplies and toilet paper, but not your lifesaving medicines or driver’s license to identify yourself. Make your go bag lightweight in case you have to walk to safety.

08/30/2022

The honorees are among the nearly 2,300 Master Gardeners who work with OSU Extension to share their knowledge of sustainable gardening practices across 27 Oregon counties and 85 educational gardens.

08/30/2022

Homeowners should be extremely careful when collecting and disposing of raccoon waste. Some raccoons have roundworms

08/30/2022

Blossom rot is the scourge of many garden tomato plants. Here's how to combat it

08/30/2022

An Ashland bungalow where the creator of the red-headed Raggedy Ann doll lived briefly a century ago has a new name, location and purpose.

Instead of the historic home becoming a public museum on city property, as a few community members wanted, the rescued bungalow on a private lot overlooking the city’s fabled Lithia Park is a vacation rental.

The Airbnb description doesn’t mention Raggedy Ann author and illustrator Johnny B. Gruelle, who came to Ashland with his family in 1923. Or the dustup last year when owners Mardi Mastain and Robin Donaldson were told by the city that it was finally time to move the mint-colored bungalow from its temporary site.

An Ashland bungalow, where the creator of the red-headed Raggedy Ann doll lived briefly a century ago, has a new name, location and purpose.

08/30/2022

Officials identified the moth spotted at the professor’s home as an atlas moth, which can have a wingspan of up to 10 inches.

08/30/2022

The ecolawn was developed to be a lower-input lawn, not a no-input lawn

08/30/2022

Master Gardeners point out their goal is to educate on options available to the public, being descriptive, not prescriptive

08/30/2022

Soldier fly larvae are voracious consumers of high nitrogen materials such as kitchen food scraps and manures, as they decay.

08/30/2022

Workshops and other events offer lessons in pest management, salsa making and more.

08/30/2022

Supposed zucchini starts purchased at a nursery are anything but.

08/30/2022

Why are they hanging out on my porch? There's no water or pond nearby

08/30/2022

One of the hottest categories to enter at the Oregon State Fair is table setting, where 20 competitors create “tablescapes” to theme, designing a menu and place settings for two.

08/30/2022

When new, the condos reflected 1970s trends of s**g carpeting and metallic wallpaper, mirrored fireplace walls and “popcorn” asbestos ceilings.

Current listings show the individually owned homes have remained as time capsules or have been upgraded over the decades.

Residents of the 337 units, then and now, have round-the-clock security and concierge service, a parking spot and if they want, car-free living.

08/24/2022

The original owners of a 1922 bungalow in Multnomah Village lived there for a half century.
Fast forward to 2022: The property was put on the market at $799,000 on July 15 and an offer and a backup offer were quickly accepted. The transaction is now pending, says listing agent Jazzmin Reece of Realty Group with Lark + Fir Realty in Multnomah Village.
The current owners searched for a buyer who would not tear down the 100-year-old house, but “revel in its history and tradition,” says Reece.

The current owners searched for a buyer who would not tear down the 100-year-old house, but “revel in the history and tradition of a Craftsman home,” says listing agent Jazzmin Reece of Bellis Realty Group with Lark + Fir Realty in Multnomah Village.

08/24/2022

Ka'ila Farrell-Smith’s powerful work as an artist and protector of the Klamath Tribes’ ancestral land is represented in 18 paintings exhibited at the Favell Museum in Klamath Falls through Sept. 3.

There’s the enchantingly tranquil “Wokas Gatherers” oil painting of two figures in a boat harvesting the edible seeds from deep-rooted water lilies in Upper Klamath Lake, once a healthy habitat for C’waam and other wildlife.

And it’s impossible to turn away from the traumatized face of a Native child with chopped hair, deprived of a safe home and forced to forget family in Farrell-Smith’s “After Boarding School: In Mourning.”

Her father, Alfred (“Al”) Leo Smith, was taken from his Klamath Modoc mother and grandparents at age 7 to unlearn his Native culture, ceremony, art and language.

Here's the amazing story behind “RED COYOTE FOR PITSAP” lithograph at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts

The Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University graduate also has works at the Portland Art Museum

“I make art for a reason, but once it leaves my studio, it has a life of its own,” says Farrell-Smith, whose first name, Ka’ila, is a Klamath word for “the earth, land and creation.”

08/22/2022

If the idea of living a cowboy fantasy sounds tempting, here’s a roundup of three Oregon ranches with a custom house for sale:

The log house east of Prineville sits on 40,040 acres, which is larger than Salem.

08/16/2022

Portland has long been famous for converting warehouses into residential properties, but a corner building in the city’s Southeast Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood is more in the loft style tradition of New York’s Tribeca than Portland’s Pearl District.

And there’s a reason for that: The owners are from Manhattan, where industrial-inspired living has social cachet because of its artistic, bohemian roots while offering the ultimate urban prize: Light-filled, open spaces in the middle of the action.

Build an indoor swimming pool or display a classic car collection in the 2,000-square-foot, ground-level space that once housed a model trail village.

08/16/2022

Pacific Crest Trail “thru” hikers, who started months ago at the bottom of California and are determined to complete their 2,663-mile northbound trek to Canada, are filling up the tiny Oregon border city of Cascade Locks.

They’re eager to cross the Columbia River on the steel Bridge of the Gods into Washington state.

But first, they’ll party.

They’ll join a few thousand hiking, backpacking and camping fans expected to attend the Pacific Crest Trail Days festival on Friday and Saturday at the Port of Cascade Locks Marine Park. PCT Days

Camping is optional at the free PCT Days festival Aug. 19-20 at the Port of Cascade Locks Marine Park in the Columbia River Gorge.