http://news.opb.org/article/2687-trophy-house-removed-create-columbia-gorge-viewpoint/
Trophy House Removed To Create Columbia Gorge Viewpoint
Washougal, WA July 28, 2008 2:34 p.m.
Conservation groups usually spend their time trying to stop development in wild areas and open spaces. But in the Columbia Gorge, a local conservation group has gone one better.
It's tearing down a trophy house and turning the site into one of the most spectacular public viewpoints in the gorge. Pete Springer paid a visit.
It’s rare for a million dollar house with a million dollar view to be torn down and turned into a park.
But that’s exactly what’s happening on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge at Cape Horn.
Kevin Gorman: “You know, anyone who’s driven on Highway 14 going out to the Gorge has driven by the Cape Horn overlook and recognized it as one of the most beautiful spots in the Gorge.”
That’s Kevin Gorman, the executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
Kevin Gorman: “Well this property and this trail sits about 300 feet above that overlook.”
Gorman says it's taken decades to reach this point.
In the early eighties -- before the National Scenic Area Act -- developers proposed a sixteen lot subdivision on top of Cape Horn.
The founder of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Nancy Russell, got a loan so the group could buy twelve of those lots. That effectively killed the subdivision.
But one house was built -- a 5500-square-foot house on four acres with one of the most spectacular views of the gorge imaginable.
Kevin Gorman: “You know, typically houses of this size, of this magnitude, they stick around.”
But Kevin Gorman with Friends of the Columbia Gorge said the timing was right to buy the house from the owners.
Kevin Gorman: “As they got older and decided they didn’t want to deal with the winters that you get in the gorge, we contacted them right about the time they were thinking about this.”
In fact, the winter winds can get so strong at Cape Horn that all the windows and sliding glass doors at the trophy home had to be double -- and sometimes triple -- reinforced. And all the walls were filled with fill-foam insulation to stop drafts.
Tom Reid is co-owner of Green Home Construction, the Mosier company tearing down the house.
Instead of coming in with a wrecking ball and hauling everything to the landfill, Reid’s company is doing a full-scale deconstruction to salvage everything it can.
Tom Reid: “More or less what we do is we panelized the building, we take an entire wall or we take and entire chuck of the building out with the reach fork lift and set it on the ground and use pry bars to pry it apart.”
Reid uses a chainsaw to help dismantle one wall.
Other workers use pneumatic denailing guns to remove nails.
Tom Reid: “You know if you look at the siding, the siding is all clear cedar siding and a lot of the framing members were all clear framing. So there is some really nice, beautiful material that comes out of here.”
Much of the torn apart house will end up at the Gorge Reconstruction Center -- or GRC -- in Hood River.
Reid says things like terra cotta roofing tiles are easily re-used.
Tom Reid: “Yep, pretty much each one comes off individually stacked on pallets, shrink wrapped and then sent back to the GRC where they’re gonna sell ‘em and they’ll be reused as tile again on somebody else’s roof.”
Reid expects to salvage at least seventy-percent of the house. He says salvaging is actually cheaper than traditional demolition.
Once the house is gone, the property will be sold to the Forest Service.
The agency is accepting comments until the end of the month about how to develop the property into a new public viewpoint.
Kevin Gorman with Friends of the Columbia Gorge says the main proposal is to build a basalt rock overlook perfect for family picnics.
Kevin Gorman: “You know there’s not many places in the gorge you can go to where you are 1500 feet up, where you have a beautiful view of the gorge, and you can hang out with your kids and have a picnic lunch and not fear that they’re gonna fall off a cliff.”
Gorman says twenty-five years ago the Forest Service didn’t own any land on top of Cape Horn. But thanks to conservation groups, the federal agency now owns and manages more than a thousand acres here.
Vista House and Multnomah Falls are visible from here, not to mention Beacon Rock, Angels Rest and Dog Mountain.
It's easy to see why Gorman expects Cape Horn to become one of the top recreation spots in the Gorge.
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