The Pittock Mansion, or Ten Years Later...
"The Pittock Estate in Portland, Oregon."
That was one of the first stories I wrote, and that was ten years ago! Ten years later, I came to the place where I once strolled with my daughter and her husband. And I write stories differently now, and the photographs—the main thing in the stories isn’t the stories themselves!—the photos for the stories are now much more numerous and colorful. (I’m actually embarrassed by those old shots now.) But while reworking it, I’m keeping the core of the story.
So, I’m heading to the estate of the newspaper magnate, Pittock, in Portland. I'm taking two buses with a transfer. (I'm visiting my daughter without my car, and I don't want to drive hers. Yes, I could take a taxi, but—I’m no lady of leisure!—I need to force my brain to work, figure out Portland's public transit system, and besides, walking, "going on foot," as my grandmother used to say, along new routes is a pleasure.)
The transfer was almost in the center of Portland, near Pioneer Square.
Even as I approached the square, I heard the sound of drums. I decided to take a look.
It turned out to be a rally to help someone... In my opinion, you can only help specific people you know. I felt like a foreign body in the crowd: my sweater was too bright, and my facial expression didn't fit.
And on the adjacent streets on an early Saturday morning, there was practically no one.
Cleanliness, the freshness of the autumn air, and the clarity of the blue sky.
Well, except for a light haze of translucent clouds.
Buses and streetcars in Portland will take you to practically any part of the city.
There are many of them, with both parallel and intersecting lines.
For the bus to stop at your desired stop, you have to "pull the cord": a yellow cord runs along all the seats, you pull it, the "stop requested" signal lights up, and the driver will stop (by the way, at night you can request a stop where it’s more convenient and safer for you). A small detail: everyone says thank you to the driver when they get off. A trifle, as they say, but pleasant!
The second bus stopped on the highway, from where I had to walk up to the estate.
The road goes through a gorgeous forest (it's fifteen minutes from the very center of the city, and all of Portland is practically a forest). At first, the walk is easy, and it's nice to photograph the houses along the road (and oh, to live in them!).
I came across a sign: "Built in 1914, the Pittock Mansion was a modern home with the latest inventions."
I'm walking alone, cars pass me—will the drivers and passengers have time to read who this is written for?!
For me! Now I'll remember for a long time that this estate was built in 1914.
The constant, though gentle, climb tired me out pretty quickly; I wanted to rest—and then another sign appeared: "Henry Pittock climbed Mount Hood four times."
Well, if Pittock climbed the highest mountain here four times, then I can certainly "climb" to his estate without a break.
Here I am at the top!
That story from ten years ago began with a good, memorable phrase, which which I borrowed from old russian joke (original story was in Russian):
"Well, yesterday they were only three dollars, but you got small ones. Today they're five, but man, are they huge."
That’s how we suffer all our lives from a mismatch, trying to combine yesterday's lost opportunity with its present inaccessibility.
When I read how much the State of Oregon paid for the Pittock estate, I was surprised, but it was already "yesterday"...
And now, as then, and traditionally in my stories, "in order."
We enter the house-museum through a side door. (As members of the family and guests often did, seeking shelter from the rain.)
But because of this, we are not greeted by the luxurious white marble staircase, which leads both downstairs to the service floor (with a side exit to the garden) and upstairs.
The private rooms of the owners are on the second floor.
The staircase is the connecting heart of the house. The view from the window alone is worth it!
The main entrance, compared to the staircase, is quite modest.
The house, in my opinion, was not intended for large-scale entertaining, but was built for the comfortable living of the family, or rather, several families. (A luxurious, beautiful, convenient life...)
From the side entrance, we enter the library.
Did you notice that the library has built-in lighting—ceiling backlighting? For 1914, this was a novelty.
(Is the ceiling in your house backlit? One hundred years later? Would you like it to be?
And my dad had those stereoscopic photos; I used to look at them as a child!)
Newspaper magnate Henry Pittock was what is called a "self-made man." He left his father's home in Pittsburgh, dropping out of school, when he was 17. He simply believed the stories of adventure and enrichment, joined two families, and, as he himself said, came to Oregon penniless and "barefoot." His father had a printing business, where his son had worked since the age of 12, and in Oregon, Henry became a typesetter at the local, not very successful at the time, newspaper, the Oregonian, having refused the only offer to work for money (which was a job as a bartender!).
I'll interrupt the story to move to the drawing room with the rosewood piano.
The family surely had a phonograph, but they lived in an era of live music, when family members played various instruments themselves.
After studying piano and vocal with local teachers, Henry's daughters, Lucy and Kate, enrolled in the Pittsburgh Conservatory. Their father bought them this rosewood Steinway piano in 1895. His daughters played it, and his grandson, Peter Gantenbein, learned to play on it.
The family was musical, often attended concerts, and supported Portland's small but growing musical community.
(Returning to Henry Pittock's youth. Remember, he refused to work as a bartender for a salary and went to work as a typesetter at the local newspaper. Good for him, as he already had experience, having worked in his father's business since he was 12...) And then the path from working without a salary, only for room and board, to becoming an "oligarch," one of the owners of the first paper mill in the Northwest, the owner of the largest newspaper, printing 12,000, and a little later 24,000 copies per hour in 1884, involved in real estate, lumber, and banking investments.
Before I tell you about the scandals in the middle of his life, I'll show you one more room: the Turkish Smoking Room.
Although, judging by the absence of soot, Henry probably didn't smoke.
It was a tradition to have a smoking room (for men, of course).
And look at the radiators throughout the house! You could even regulate the temperature!
Now, what everyone has been waiting for: the scandals in Henry Pittock's life. (And who hasn't had scandals in the middle of their life? Let them cast the first stone.)
Oregonians learned about the assassination of President Lincoln from Pittock's newspaper (the local telegraph operator, being "on friendly terms," reported the sensational news only to Henry), which undermined the prestige of rival newspapers! Scandal!
It was rumored that Henry laid a water line to the estate, which was then outside the city limits, at the city's expense! Scandal!
(He suppressed the scandal and discredited its organizer, Will Dale, although the documents for the discredit were obtained by theft.)
And there was much more...
Not a life, but material for a Western, "How I Became a Shark of Capitalism" (where Pittock would be the villain, of course), or a bestseller, "How to Become a Millionaire" (the positive version, enviable and absolutely impossible to repeat—the time has passed, those "crayfish are already for five"...).
It's time to interrupt the story and show the dining room.
I must say, the dining room, and there were eleven people constantly living in the house at first, seemed too small for such a number of people. (What a view from the dining room window!)
And how inconvenient it was for the servants to serve here: no room to turn around! Well, unless they didn't all eat together. Ah, yes! Children were not seated at the adult table back then.
Silverware was popular not only with magnates; in the last third of the 19th century, the middle class also displayed their status with silver on the table.
Here's a little quiz: do you know what all these items are for? In the drawer, there's a butter knife, a salt spoon, an olive spoon, a bacon fork, a tomato serving spoon... And these are all different items.
(I feel a certain pleasure in getting by in everyday life with just spoons, only two types, and forks. Well, and knives, of course, and I don't eat off the knife. Honestly, how much time do you spend on these tiny forks and spoons in your life! In your opinion, is it worth it?)
I want to take you through the kitchen.
The kitchen is the pride of any hostess, or host. And here, the Pittocks had something to be proud of!
Hot and cold water, a double sink for washing dishes...
And this is the stove, a gas stove, simultaneously with an electric warming system to keep food hot. Wouldn't you like to have one like it? I wouldn't refuse. And with a range hood!
A sink for washing produce... (Are you also as behind the times as I am, washing both produce and dishes in the same sink?)
"The family purchased most of their food and relied on delivery. At the turn of the century, consumers considered canned goods modern, healthy, and convenient. By 1914, Portland had many canneries for fruit and vegetables, and the Columbia River had become the world's capital for canned salmon. It was also in Portland that the Northwest Beef Processing Center was located."
The Pittocks also had a vegetable garden and a greenhouse, which provided them with fresh vegetables, but at a high cost; growing your own vegetables and fruits is expensive. (Henry Pittock once remarked, "This tomato cost me $50.")
This Westinghouse refrigerator, vintage 1928, was installed in the house when the kitchen was renovated in the late 1920s to early 1930s, after Henry Pittock's death. Before that, the room had a thick door and three layers of thick glass in the windows, which was more common in hotels than in private homes. A plumbing system kept the room cool, allowing fruits and vegetables to be kept fresh. A separate refrigerator with equipment in the basement provided an even lower temperature for milk, butter, and meat.
The view from the servant's staircase window.
And these are probably the best photos of the whole series. This is my photographer dad, who even after his passing continues to guide me and tell me what and how to shoot... This is, as you can see, the kitchen window.
And the view from the kitchen window... Ah!
Another room on the first floor where the family had breakfast.
Every morning, the estate manager, James Skene, brought Henry Pittock his newspaper, the Morning Oregonian, here. Henry became its owner and publisher in 1860, the year he got married. (The room, by the way, is also not very large.)
The wedding photograph of Henry Pittock and Georgiana Burton. He is 26 here, she is 15.
Fifteen! They had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood.
In 1909, Henry Pittock began building the estate in the French Renaissance style (imagine: starting to build the house of your dreams at the age of 74!), where he and his wife Georgiana moved in the summer of 1914.
This is Georgiana's room. By the way, the original furniture has practically not survived, so what you see in the photographs was selected by the society for the preservation of the estate. The furniture was chosen from that period, often from the homes of the Pittocks' contemporaries, people of the same means and status in society at the time.
A tiny dressing room! Where did she keep all her dresses?!
Next to her bedroom is her bathroom.
A sink with a very high faucet... (there are two faucets: a high one and a low one). See how convenient it is to wash your hair, for example? And the smaller faucet is for hands. Cold and hot water, and next to it a central heating radiator, and on the wall a cabinet with medicines or toiletries... ("I have one too," I can proudly say, at least about the cabinet!)
But I don't see such expanses from my bathroom window...
The bed Henry Pittock slept on, the industrial, newspaper magnate himself! It survived somehow. (Don't envy the rich of the early century! An austere bed: narrow, the mattress surely made of horsehair, which was considered expensive and good, stiff...) But the view from the window is captivating again...
And his bathroom was next to it, no smaller than his room! Henry Pittock's bathroom had many ways to keep clean: a sink, a bathtub, a shower, and a sitz bath! That tiny tub you were wondering about is the sitz bath: you can sit if you want, or wash your feet... By 1914, they knew that germs caused disease, which led to a concern for hygiene and recommendations to use finishing materials, such as white tile, which is easy to clean. (And it's clearly visible how well the servants cleaned that tile! In 1914, a cook and a maid lived in the house permanently, and a woman from the city came to clean the house.)
In the corner of the bathroom (truly a room here!) is a shower—in one article, called a "fearsome hydraulic masterpiece." The Oregon Encyclopedia describes it as: "A human car wash with horizontal needle sprays to reach all parts of the body, including 'liver sprays' and 'toe testing'."
Not bad for 1914, right?
His dressing room is as small as his wife's.
Two daughters with their husbands and children, and two of Georgiana's nieces, orphans, lived in several other rooms. (And not so much space for everyone by modern standards.) This is the bedroom of one daughter with her husband.
Henry Pittock's daughters: Kate, Lucy, and Caroline... Just like Chekhov's Three Sisters.
Another bedroom...
The view from the window! I never tire of repeating "view, view, view"... From every window, there's such greenery, such open spaces, mountains in the distance, and now, in the fall, a multitude of leaf colors!
This is the room where the grandson, Peter Gantenbein, lived. Remember, I told you he learned to play the piano on that rosewood Steinway. He grew up here and loved playing with this children's puppet theater. He and his father were the last family members to live in the house until 1958.
They started building the estate in 1909, and moved in in 1914. But in 1913, Georgiana suffered a stroke, which left her partially paralyzed. An elevator was installed in the house for her. (Those white doors with the marble frame—that’s the elevator.)
Henry and Georgiana only lived in this house for about four years... Georgiana died in 1918 at the age of 72, and her husband died of the flu in 1919 at the age of 84, outliving his wife by seven months.
Henry Pittock's fortune at the time of his death was estimated at $7,894,778.33 (seven million eight hundred ninety-four thousand seven hundred seventy-eight dollars and 33 cents—I took it from an online article, I didn't make it up. Those 33 cents amuse me. Who counted them?! But either way, this is the equivalent of 108 million today, without considering the cents, of course!)
The heirs continued to live in the house until 1958, when it was decided to put it up for sale due to the high cost of maintenance—but no buyers were found. The house stood empty, and in 1962 it was severely damaged by a hurricane. The city residents came forward with a proposal to save the estate and raised $75,000 towards the purchase of the house, which the city bought for $225,000. (If only I could go there with today's money and its purchasing power then! But no luck: those crayfish have already been eaten...)
After 15 months of repair and restoration, the museum opened in 1965.
If you thought the elevator, the circular shower, the refrigerator, the electric lighting, and the built-in electric lighting were modern achievements, I hope you have changed your mind after reading this story.
And what if I tell you that the house also had an intercom and a telephone?! And that's not all! There's a central vacuum system, meaning you didn't have to carry a vacuum cleaner to clean the house, you just had to connect the tube—the hose—to an opening in the wall—and vacuum your carpets to your heart's content. I myself have begun to think differently about the beginning of the 20th century and 1914.
I've been buzzing in your ear about the views from the windows. We haven't even gone out to walk around the grounds yet!
Now I'll be quiet, and together we’ll simply enjoy the vistas opening up before us...
That famous Mount Hood, which Henry Pittock climbed four times.
It was a wonderful day, a wonderful house that was once comfortable to live in and which one could envy (or not, if you think about how hard it must have been to clean all those rooms and maintain such an estate...).
Time to go back to the city—and home!
Hooray, the bus is around the corner...
P.S.
As I was leaving, at the exit from the estate, there was a small house that looks quite modest from the road, though very stylish.
Next to the house is an explanatory sign.
Read it. Enjoy it.
"Skene Residence. The first occupants of this house were the Pittock family chauffeur Herman Howinkson and his wife Helen, who moved in after its construction in 1914. After they left, the estate manager James Skene and his wife Marjorie lived in this four-story, Italianate home from 1918 to 1953. Their daughter Marjorie grew up here.
...
A handyman, James cared for the grounds and greenhouses, ordered bulbs and flowers for the spring garden, managed the gardener, repaired plumbing and appliances such as the elevator and cars, and occasionally acted as chauffeur. He even attached a snowplow blade to his Packard to clear the road of snow. Marjorie was a homemaker and raised their daughter. In addition to James's monthly salary, the Skenes had the 2,500 square foot Gate Lodge at their disposal."
Looking at the house, having descended a little...
... and now from the personal road to the house of the manager, the handyman, James Skene.
I really liked "he EVEN attached a snowplow blade to his Packard" and the definition of this house as a "LODGE"!
***
They hung mirrors all over the house...
Well, you can't walk by without taking a picture of yourself in their reflection! You can't deny yourself, beloved, such a pleasure! (I'm laughing, I'm laughing! You have to be a little ironic about your own vanity! I'm keeping this for myself as a memory—and sending greetings to my friends.)
And also, for those who want to read the
first story (this is more of a reminder to myself, I don't advise you to look,
the photos there are a complete disgrace):
The path is conquered by the one who
walks, stories are learned by the one who writes. I hope that in ten years I
will re-read this one—and write a new one on the same topic. Better.
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