Tag Archives: Court Chemeketa Residential Historic District

The Waller Chamberlin House, 2014

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Architecture, CCRHD, Court Street, Modern Life, Preservation, Roger Hull, Uncategorized

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This post is probably going to be in the “too much information” category for most of you…but I HAVE to do it.  It does, however, explain why it has been so quiet from these parts for awhile.  We’ve been hunkering down while this very old house has been thoroughly gone over, repaired and painted in the most efficient and respectful way possible.  We didn’t believe anybody could do as thorough a job as R did in 1985 when he spent the entire summer removing siding and prepping and repainting this house.

1985

R painting the house

2:2

2:7

Now of course, we didn’t realize in 1985 that this house was built in 1849, moved twice, added on to several times….including that we ourselves would put an addition on in 1995.  That was information and activity that was still ahead for us.

We bought the house still clad in aluminum siding in 1980 when it looked like this:2:1

We sold the aluminum siding we removed and got $300…!

2:4

When this group was sitting on the porch (1903), the house was already 54 years old, had been moved once and would be moved again (1913), and had it’s first addition (1893).  It had double doors then, but not when we bought it…that discovery and restoration was still ahead for us…1903

Front door 198522

But that was then, and now…well time has passed, let’s just say.  The most excellent SAM JONES and his crew of seven scraped, sanded, caulked, primed twice (12 gallons of primer) repaired, replaced…well it was amazing to watch.  2 coats of paint and three on the south side for a total of 50 gallons of paint…in 10 days….and it looked like this:

cracked board

1

…oops, cracked and rotting boards…

2

R taking photo through lathe

lathe

Insulation

14

12

54

10

13

caulk

Details…

21817

they stopped and made lunch every day….in their own microwave…

15

and now, a quiet Sunday of sweeping, raking, and putting things back in place…but this old lady is ready for another decade or two…

all done

 

 

 

Goodbye to a lovely old friend….

26 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Court Street, Garden, Trees

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“Back in the day…” (1930 let’s say) our yard looked like this (the houses belonged to our neighbors)

Lucille's 1930

and when we bought the house in 1980 it looked like this…(and the red house is ours)

1981

and now it looks like this…with this addition to the rear of the house from 1995…

s

and in the east side flower bed all these years has been a lovely dogwood, here in bloom…

controversa 2010

Long before we arrived, the original planter of the tree had staked and wired it, and then nobody noticed that wire over the year, so the trunk grew over the wire.  In 1981 our neighbor told us to cut down the tree as it would die…but we waited.  And sure enough, Phil was right, it died this past fall…33 years after we moved in.  So today was the day it was removed.  I got up early for a last look…

early this morning

and then the crew arrived and made short work of it…all those summers of shade, blooms in the spring, color in the fall, graceful branches in the winter, mecca for tiny birds…all gone in under 30 minutes…

down first

down 1

down 3

PHEW.  Time to replant…?

Friday Was Neighborhood Day…

17 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Art work, Artists, Books, CCRHD, Modern Life

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Friday I stayed pretty much in the neighborhood, but luckily this is a neighborhood with fun stuff happening…neighbor and book artist Ann Kresge agreed to do a quick tutorial for me on a couple of basic book formats, before I go off to California for my week at the Lost Coast Culture Machine with Carolyn Schneider.

I choose the two simplest formats…the figure 8

and the accordion..

Ann is a good teacher and dutifully had me try each step…but the most fun was watching her deftly glue the cover paper I had chosen for the accordion…

and..TA DA…my two finished books…

And then…on the way home, I noticed they were making a movie at the corner…

and finally at G&A’s for a quiet dinner by the creek…you have to love CCRHD (Court Chemeketa Residential Historic District)…

Frankie’s Garden

06 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in CCRHD, Garden, Uncategorized

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I forgot to mention that Frankie started playing uke with Carol and Sharon and me.  When we were dropping her off the other day (Frankie and George are neighbors in the historic district) she invited us to stroll her garden saying “it’s a little wild”…but in fact it’s just plain beautiful…and it’s only just May.  The sound of water is the background music you need to imagine…her own waterfall near the house and then Mill Creek at the bottom of the garden…  Take a stroll…she said she didn’t mind…

…and look…there’s Carol’s house across the creek!

1658 Court Street, Historical View Continues…

23 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Architecture, Family photos, Garden, Preservation, Uncategorized

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The porch history post got me looking at old photos, and so…to keep the thought going, here is the historical –mid-historical—and current view of 1658 Court Street.  Photos do not exist of the rear of the house when it was on State Street, or at the corner of 17th and Court (it was moved twice…sort of an antique mobile home….).  In the 1980’s I chatted with Sue Rankin (Katy’s Mom) and she kindly loaned me some family photos (which I had copied).  These were very very interesting to us as we proceeded working on this house.   In 1995 Roger and I put an addition on the rear of the house so the rear facade looks  different, plus the yard is smaller.  Here though is a photo from the 1940’s showing the rear of the house…you had to go outside to get to the basement…(the kitties were named Amos and Andy…)

and here from our early years here…first in 1983 with aluminum siding still in place, and a maple tree too big for the yard.  The single bedroom window had been replaced by a sliding door in the 1960’s, and the shed covering over the basement door had been removed…the back porch first open and then latticed, now had walls and a window…

in 1985 we removed the aluminum siding and cut down the maple tree and things looked a little rough at that point:

Here’s how the rear of the house looks in 2011…the addition of about 800 sq. feet, a deck, an herb garden…

The McElhinney’s made the garden…the boxwood came from up on Jerris Street from Governor Doug McKay’s house (he didn’t like boxwood and HE had a Lord and Schryver garden!)   Before they really got going though the yard looked like this in the early 1930’s, and then Nell and Charlie worked their magic

By the 1950’s the garden was well established:

The same views from 2011:

Every member of the McElhinney family we met over the course of the 1980’s had great feeling for this house and garden, and we think it’s part of what makes living here so sweet.

Porch Newsnotes…

19 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in Architecture, Court Street, Garden Studio, Preservation, Salem

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In 1901 the porch on our house (which, in 1901, sat at the corner of Court and 17th facing east) was not the same porch that we have now.

(left to right rear:C.B.Moores, Martin Chamberlin, Lenore Chamberlin Weller.  Center row: Rose Weller Chamberlin, Sallie Chamberlin Moores, Mrs. Hollister, Dr. Joseph Hollister.  Botoom row: Mary Chamberlin Waller, Hollister Chamberlin, Georgie Weller.)

When our house was moved about 1914 to it’s current location, a new porch…sort of a colonial revival porch (having NOTHING to do with the 1849 house)…was built.  Part of the decking was replaced in the 1970’s, but by August 2011, things had gone from bad to worse…take a look:

the nice Paul Jordan and his son Preston were here the other day to make a small porch miracle…

When the steps were dismantled, it became clear that the old porch had been narrower and there had probably been a sidewalk heading around the west side of the house (now that space has camellias dating at least from the early 1940’s…)

 

Here’s how the porch looked in the early 1930’s when the McElhinney family took a family photo.  In the center rear is Charlie McElhinney, and the little girl in front is Sue McElhinney (Rankin).  Sue’s daughter Katie now owns our local art supply store, the Art Department.

In 1948 the McElhinneys took another family photo (Sue, all grown up, is second from the right…), showing a bit of the porch with camellias in place…

But I digress…Paul had pre-primed the wood for the steps and was very tidy and systematic in his work.  Additionally he enhanced the superstructure of the stairs considerably…

Amazingly all the work was accomplished in one day, and we are back in porch business!!

PS: Preston came yesterday and put a “new” (old) screen on the studio.

 

Surgery…

22 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by in Court Street, Modern Life, Trees

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TREE surgery that is.  Last week we noticed this sign on a tree across the street…

and really, when we stepped back and LOOKED at the tree we saw it was a bit sick looking,

and at the base of the trunk somebody in the neighborhood had sprinkled rose petals…as a last tribute?

And today, July 21, day of reckoning, the surgical crew arrived early, there was a crack and a thump and…voila…

and then the rest of the day was spent tidying up…sigh…

Good-bye neighbor…

MAD Chapter 2

25 Thursday Nov 2010

Posted by in Coffee art, Garden, Salem, Uncategorized

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It’s sooooo cold here today.  I went by the creek planting site this morning on my way back from the last Thanksgiving errands, and though all the holes were neatly dug, the planters weren’t there…too cold I thought:

but on our way to coffee we did a quick drive by just in case and found Luke and Caprielle working away planting:

the plant in the foreground is a nootka rose.  Additionally they are planting bald hipped roses, Oregon grape both creeping and tall varieties, and other plants.  Luke will send me a list and I’ll post it.  The original grant was  a small-water-shed grant from USGS applied for by Todd Jarvis at OSU.  Then Joe Bowersox at Willamette UNiversity applied to OSU for a smaller piece of the larger grant, for this project.  Luke and Caprielle said there is money to work on two additional sites nearby along the creek when this is finished.

Here is the Barquist house (which originally sat across the street from the planting site)…now nicely located in the Court Chemeketa Residential Historic District on Court Street.  Note the Pattons’ decision to raise the house up on a high foundation.  They also put on an addition to the rear of the house.

We got so cold we had to go get a coffee

and when I was taking the picture R said “We must be in Salem…”  indeed.

Making a Difference…(and the historic perspective)

23 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by in Architecture, Garden, Salem, Trees

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Luke Westphal and Caprielle Barlow both graduated from Willamette University last spring…she in bio/chem, he in environmental science.  For his senior thesis project Luke designed an area in the ODOT right of way under the Mission Street fly-over

in which his idea was to rid the creek bank of the invasive species growing there (mostly blackberry and cherry laurel), and replace them with native plants.  His thesis project was completed, and he was graduated in May.  His professor Joe Bowersox applied for a grant to actually “build” the project, and hired Luke to do the work.  Luke said luckily ODOT came with a “blade” and scraped away much of the blackberry…

Today, in the steady freezing downpour, Luke and Caprielle were working like demons to prepare the holes for planting.  Planting day is Wednesday.  I’d been watching the ground being worked and the little flags appear, and stopped today to see what was happening.

Luke and Caprielle said that in clearing the space they displaced some local transient residents along the creek who moved on when the project started.  (Luke said they left their garbage for him though…) I’ll get the whole plant list Wednesday from them…maybe 9-11 varieties of plants.  If you’re out and about, drive by and say hello to a couple of people making a difference.

And here’s the addendum and historic perspective.  Just about across the street from where Luke and Caprielle are working stood the Queen Anne cottage known historically as the Carmelita Barquist house, originally at the corner of 14th and Mission…BEFORE the fly-over:

(Note the little house on the left in the ’85 picture…center of the 2010 picture…for context)

In 1987 in preparation for the construction of the overpass many small houses were razed, but the Barquist house was purchased by Roy and Hazel Patton and moved onto Court Street:

Even without a blog in 1987,  my reporting instincts were in play…???