Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Walking in NW Portland

When my friend was here from Arizona, we walked in Northwest Portland.  It is a unique district with older homes and trendy shops.  Many of the enormous older homes have been subdivided into condos and apartments, but in the streets above the shopping district there are still stately single family mansions, former homes of the people who built up Portland.  A guidebook of the neighborhood reads like a who’s who in 1890.

In fact, we had lunch at Besaw’s on NW 23rd  which was opened in 1903 and became a popular watering hole during the 1905 World’s Fair in Portland.  After Prohibition, Besaw’s was the first place in Oregon to get a liquor license.  During Prohibition they had become an eatery in order to stay in business.  If this intriques you, see http://www.besaws.com/about/ .  Sadly, I have no pictures of my delicious Reuben Sandwich or our outside seating.

Below the mansion district are the regular homes of the earlier day, now highly sought and not so “regular”(see below).  People know how to have fun in NW Portland!  It’s a little bit classy and a little bit wacky.

11-09-13-12-00-26H 11-09-13-12-00-10H  Parking is quite a problem in this area since cars were not invented when the homes were built, and no allowance was made for garages. 

A curbside treatment: 11-09-13-15-24-12H 11-09-13-15-24-40H

Outside this home’s (retrofitted) garage and entryway, natural colored stones were used in mosaics as focal interest:

11-09-13-15-25-08H11-09-13-15-25-27H

In a flower shop entry I was caught by the last-of -season snapdragons and alstromeria and the first-of-season fall wreaths.  I noted the natural hand tied framework for future reference:

11-09-13-13-54-19H 11-09-13-13-53-43H 11-09-13-13-53-56H Sadly, I did not bring home anything but ideas.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Love the colors of those homes! Thanks for sharing.

Nancy's Daily Dish said...

Beautiful...and what a cool mosaic out of stones! Love that idea!

Nancy

Anonymous said...

Interesting! Love the colored stones in the entrances.
Blogger won't let me comment as myself!
Kathleen

Confessions of a Plate Addict said...

Lovely! Ideas are a great thing to bring home! :-) Happy weekend!...hugs...Debbie

kae pea said...

ideas are the best thing to bring home!! xokp

kae pea said...

I forgot to say i love the pictures you took and i want to live in one of those houses! Oregon is such a beautiful state. I love it there...

Rowan said...

Oregon is one of the US states that I've never been to but would really love to see. The houses look really pretty painted in all those pretty colours and I love the stone mosaics.Portland looks an interesting city.

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