Day Trip to Gordon House (Silverton, OR) | Spring 2022

It was a pleasant surprise a few weeks back to find out that there is a Frank Lloyd Wright -designed home within an hour of Portland.  Further, that it is open to the public, AND that it was having an event on the first Saturday of June to celebrate FLW's birthday.

The bonus for me was that the structure, known as the Gordon House, is a single family home that is an example of his Usonian design style, which I had only first learned of a year ago when I was taking an online class at Santa Barbara City College.  The Usonian style was in part a set of homes that Wright designed with the intent of being affordable housing for the American working class of that time (1930s, 40s).  Simpler styles and smaller square footage, but with at least one element of what was considered high design, were some primary characteristics.

The Gordon House itself was built in 1963 in Wilsonville, OR, but ended up being partially taken apart and relocated about 21 miles way in 2001 to the town of Silverton, and rebuilt within an 80 acre botanical garden (named the Oregon Garden).

For Saturday, June 4th, for $5 entry, the public was able to enjoy a casual tour of the House, and birthday cake.

Considering that general admission to the House during its operating hours is $20, I decided I had to make the trek down to check it out.

It also turned out that my Portland State friend was interested and down for the event and adventure, so made for fun exploration with company.

That morning I decided to keep my AM shift at the Lan Su Chinese Garden (8-10am), and from there get back to my place, shower & get ready, get on the road and across town to pick up PSU friend, and then on down to Silverton in time for its 12pm noon opening.

Everything went to plan and we arrived maybe around 12:15pm or so at the Gordon House.  Silverton is some ways off of the main interstate (5) so it was a few different highways across and east to the town.

The House is through the front entrance of the Oregon Garden and around a few bends in the road and a slight uphill grade.

There was ample parking on a sloping paved lot, and before we knew it we were walking down the single lane road directly to the Gordon House.

(Note: At any point there were like 10+ people milling about, but in my pics I was artful to snap mostly when the shot was clear of ppl).

The front of the house was as expected in the pictures, with the carport off to the right, jutting out at 90 degree angle from the two story rectangle that is the front of the house.  The main front door with windows to the right, and the separate "service door" for the kitchen and separate office to the left.

Once inside, the main entry way, with low ceiling, gave way to open up to the main living space that is 1.5 stories tall.  For the event, they had a gentleman on piano playing live back to back mood music tunes reading sheet music from his iPad/Kindle virtual music book.

Just to the other side of the piano man was a kiosk where two attendants collected our $5 entry and introduced the House to us.  Basically we were free to roam around at we wished, have a slice of birthday cake in the kitchen, and ask any of the docents milling about any questions we had.

I'll use an exterior pic first to give a better sense of the main living space, but in construction it juts out as single story base to the two-story perpendicular front structure, making the house overall (minus carport) in the shape of a T.

Inside the main space, the tall ceilings and ample windows made the space feel open, yet cozy at the same time.

On the far end of the space was a fireplace and hearth to the left, and built in L -shaped seating, with shelving above.

Above the seating and elsewhere throughout the House was the signature element of the Gordon House design, which was the custom window work.  Referred to as "fretwork", it was a repeating pattern cut into wood, that it appears was then applied over the glass sheets to create the intricate window wall installations.

(I got a closer look upstairs and I believe the fretwork pattern was cut into plywood, and then a sheet of the cut plywood was applied to each the front and back of each glass sheet to create design.  Could be wrong though -- I imagine cutting actual glass to these shapes would've been a signficant undertaking!)

The numerous paned doors opening up to the patios were impressive, also -- notable that the doors themselves extended up 10+ feet without a break in the single sheets of glass, which created uninterrupated sightlines.

As for the layout of the space, on the first floor, there was one office, with bathroom, off of the kitchen to the left when you enter, and then the master bedroom and bath to the right.  Then, upstairs, were two more bedrooms, each with its own balcony, and a shared bathroom in the middle.

Inside upstairs bedroom #1:

 

View from the balcony of the 1st upstairs bedroom:

  

Then, down the length of the hallway between the two upstairs bedrooms, looking toward #1st bedroom:

Inside the 2nd upstairs bedroom (that was being used as an office):

 

View from the balcony of the 2nd upstairs bedroom:

 

And finally, to finish out the upstairs, at the top of the stairs at the landing of the 2nd floor, there was an open space for none other than a loom to just hang out and, like, make fabric.

The continued use of the fretwork window design upstairs, down the full front length of the House, was probably the most visually impactful element overall up there.

Random fun: One of the docents had told us downstairs that there was a laundry chute built in from the upstairs down to the laundry area (laundry area being just to the left of the front door, partially underneath stairwell to the 2nd floor and in front of the kitchen area).  We opened basically every built in cabinet in the upstairs hallway looking for the one that connected as the chute, and the docent ended up showing us the one that was a straight shot down.  I appreciated how disguised the function of it was from what otherwise looked like seamless storage along the hallway.

I got no pics of the kitchen (or "Work Area" as it was called in the designs), but it was interesting specifically because as a room it was built a full 2 stories high, but with no windows on either story and just a skylight above to shine light down into the kitchen.  The kitchen was very representative of the period and reminded me overall in style of the Brady Bunch house kitchen, but smaller.  It did have a decent amount of counter space though, and was shaped as a square. (And it also made me nostalgic for my O'Keefe & Merritt vintage stove I sold off when I left Santa Barbara!).  

Nor did I get any pics of the office, beyond the kitchen, which was a smaller, functional space, with similar shelving built in as elsewhere in the house, with its own (quite small) bathroom complete with tiny shower stall.  Or nor any pics of the master bedroom, which was probably my biggest pic omission, other than the kitchen.  The master bedroom was very compact by today's standards, and there were multiple ppl in it including a one person stage crew for a local radio station that was taping one of the docents speaking.  Most interesting aspect of the master bedroom, as mentioned by the docents, was that, at the request of the homeowners, it was designed without any windows.  It had just one exterior door with a window panel, but otherwise there were only walls with built in storage (on two sides), and the separate door off to the master bathroom (which did have a small oblong rectangle window that faced out to the front entry).

After milling about and around a bit more inside, buying a bit of merch that was displayed in the dining area (only some postcards for me), it was outside to walk around the perimeter of the place to take in the exterior sightlines.

Interesting to note too that as the docents noted, when the house was relocated from its original location, they ended up rebuilding the base of the first story of the house.  So, the cinder blocks at the base of the house were not the original construction, but made to match the rest of the house the remaining way up.

Overall we spent about an hour there, and we were definitely happy with the visit.  For me this was only my 2nd visit to a FLW-designed structure, the only other time being a visit maybe 12 years ago to Taliesin West, outside of Phoenix, AZ.

One final shot, walking back up the road away from the house:

....

And since I'm blogging this day, I may as well include the lunchtime brews and eats at the single brewery in the town of Silverton, named Ratchet Brewery.

It was confirmed speculation that the brewery location was built out of a former auto shop, but I wholly expect that Ratchet Brewery (established 2017) knew what they were doing naming it as such, despite even the actual ratchets in the brewery logo design.

Decent beers and good, heavy eats were had.  I had a Deuce Coupe IPA followed by a Moto Floozy blonde for beer.  And, a bbq burger and fries for food.

After meal, it was worth a short loop around downtown Silverton to confirm it indeed has what looks to be a fun set of city blocks that are worth future exploration, and reminded me a lot of Camas, WA (just east of Vancouver, across the river from Portland).  

After that, the successful Gordon House adventure was adjourned, and back to Portland it was (ultimately for more beers and food, and ruminations on the Gordon House).