Fun with Dana

One afternoon, Dana and I went to a local mansion I'd heard about.  It was pretty cool, crazy that people live(d) in a house so large.  But at least back then they had other family members living with them as well as staff for the house.  Nowadays people have 10 room houses for their 4 person families...  It was built by an older couple in the early 1900s, he owned the Oregonian, the local newspaper.
So, this is the front, and to the left is a little overhang where they would drive up to the side door.

This is their library, where they would go after dinner.

 This was an entertaining room.  They had a 100 year old piano in here as well as a harp and to the left of this picture was a fabulous large window that shows out to the garden as well as the Willamette River.

 Yep, that's it.  You'll see it from the outside as well later.

 Pretty cool fireplace and mantel.

 This was in a smoking room.  The room was round and very small, pretty much room for just these tables.

 This was their formal dining room.

 Their kitchen.  Of course this wasn't THEIR stove, but something similar would have been in the room.

 This was a refrigerator room.  It was cool, it had a door like a bank safe would have and then the window there was super thick so it wouldn't let the cold out.

 A fabulous set of stairs.  The house had 4 levels, we only got to see the bottom three.

 And some examples of their rooms.

 And bathrooms.  It was too funny!!  You think it's so new and modern to have a shower with a huge head on it that just drops water on your head or fancy to have water coming out of all different areas.  Well, these bathrooms had all of that.  I tried to get Dana to lift the phone to pretend to talk, but they had rubber bands around all of them.  So I put her in the shower.  This house was really modern, it had a central vacuum system, an intercom system, an ELEVATOR. 

 This was a sewing room in the woman's room (the husband and wife had separate rooms).  That tea set was like 200 YEARS old!!!!  Seriously, it looked brand spankin' new.

 An old Singer sewing machine.  Reminds me of the one my aunt has/had.

 And this belonged to one of the grandchildren who was born at the house and lived there with his parents and grandparents.  He was actually the last one to inhabit the house and then in the 60s moved out (probably because it was too much to take care of, 16,000 sq. feet!!).  Then the city of Portland bought it so it wouldn't be torn down for $250,000, had some people that care about old stuff fix it up, and buy stuff to put in the house that may have been in a house like this.

 This was the elevator.  Apparently it still works because you can ask to use it if you're handicapped.  I didn't have the guts to ask to use it...

 This is the back of the house and that window I wrote about earlier.

 The gardens were amazing!!

  I thought this rose was super cool.  It was still blooming and the middle was still nice and firm.

 The end. :)