Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: Kalama, Washington

My friends hang out in cool places. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of staying at McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge courtesy of two dear ones. The four-story square structure is modeled after the Pioneer Inn on Maui, which was completed in 1901, just barely on this side of the nineteenth century.

The town of Kalama itself dates from 1837, when John Kalama, a Hawaiian native, came to act as intermediary between the Cowlitz Tribe and the Hudson Bay Company. But I was shocked to learn the name of the first white settler to the area.

Ezra Meeker.

Now, Mr. Meeker looms large in my local history, and I have blogged about him before. But I hadn’t known he stopped first in Kalama before heading north to my neck of the woods. Others built Kalama into a decent-sized town, one of the largest north of Portland at that time.

Today, Kalama is a cozy town hugging the Columbia River, boasting many wonderful antique stores, which we toured. I’ll share one of my finds in a future post. The other thing Kalama is known for are a set of four totem poles erected near the river. The largest was carved for the Seattle World’s Fair, but never quite made it out of town. It is the largest single-tree totem pole in the world at 140 feet long. Sadly, a recent assessment showed that the pole is rotting from the inside out and could have fallen in a good wind. It had been lowered onto the ground when we visited, and a group of local citizens is working to determine how it can be restored.

The McMenamins group generally buys and restores historic properties, turning them into hotels and eateries. The lodge at Kalama is one of a few custom-built from the ground up. My friends and I had a blast wandering the hallways reading the various accounts of local history posted between each room. And we giggled like girls when we discovered each of the two secret rooms hidden in the hotel.

If you are ever in the area, I recommend a look.

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: Osterley Park

Full disclosure: the list of “places Regina wants to visit next time she goes to England” only gets longer with each Regency I write. When I was researching for Never Envy an Earl, I wanted Gregory, the hero, to have a wonderful country estate, which he helped design. That’s when I stumbled upon the perfect model: Osterley Park.

Osterley Park is an estate to the west of London. It was built (okay, remodeled) for the Child family, which founded Child’s Bank, by the incomparable Robert Adam. Now, you may have seen a ceiling here, a room there designed by this amazing architect, but the entire house was his canvas in this case, and it shows.

While dubbed a Georgian structure (it was finished in the late 1700s), the turrets at each corner remind me of a castle. I love the entrance, up a set of broad steps and through ionic columns into a central courtyard.

Inside, the rooms are all richly decorated, with fanciful plasterwork, old masters framed with yards of gilt, tapestry on wall and chair, and so much gold!

The Childs didn’t enjoy the house long before it passed into the hands of a granddaughter who married George Villiers, fifth earl of Jersey. His wife would become the famous Lady Jersey, a doyen of society and one of the patronesses of Almack’s.

Osterley Park is currently operated by the National Trust. It can be reached easily by bus, train, or underground. Learn more at the park's website.  

Photo credit for Osterley Park in spring: Mark Percy

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: Lakewold Gardens

This is closer to the 20^th century than the 19^th, but I recently had the pleasure of visiting this charming gem, and I thought you’d find it interesting.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the area around Lakewood, Washington, was considered a “retreat” for city dwellers in Tacoma and Seattle because of the many lakes. In 1908, avid gardener Emma Alexander bought a 5-acre plot of land along the shore of Gravelly Lake. She started building a summer cottage, with a garden around it using many native plants. After her son took over the property in 1918, he added an adjacent 5 acres. During his ownership, he also built a finer house and enlarged the gardens.

The estate passed through other hands before being purchased by George Corydon and Eulalie Wagner. The wealthy Corydon had his hand in lumber, investments, and coal, while his wife adored gardening. It was Eulalie who had the current house built along Palladian lines. The story goes, she wanted pink stone for the exterior and sent all the way to Tennessee for it. When it arrived, she promptly returned it because it wasn’t pink enough.

Eulalie also hired Thomas Church, a renowned landscape architect, to come redesign the gardens. He returned over the course of several summers to achieve her dream.

She and her husband entertained lavishly, with friends and family, including hosting weddings for their children. As the wife of a lumber executive, my grandmother remembered being invited to Christmas parties at Lakewold Gardens. I was struck by the many nineteenth century touches, like this sweeping staircase and black-and-white marble floors.

And silk wall coverings that date from the nineteenth century.

I thought the library particularly Regencyesque.

In 1987, Eulalie donated the house and gardens to a non-profit organization, asking that the gardens be maintained and opened to the public.

Lakewold Gardens is located at 12317 Gravelly Lake Drive SW. The gardens are open year-round, though closed a few holidays. Check the website at http://lakewoldgardens.org/ for details. The video below was created to celebrate all that Lakewold offers. I guarantee the place will grow on you. 😊

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: National Building Museum

I discovered this gem recently when I traveled to the nation’s capital. The National Building Museum is run by a non-profit organization set up by Congress. The red-brick façade appears solid and sturdy, but if you look closer, you can see a marvelous frieze showing every type of regiment in the Union army, all valiantly marching around the outside. Still, nothing prepares you for what awaits inside.

What is now the National Building Museum was originally completed in 1887 to house the Pension Bureau, those hard-working individuals attempting to manage the claims of the hundreds of thousands of men who had served the Union in the Civil War. The order from the government was clear—besides allowing for processing these claims, the building had to have a grand central space for use in civic and social functions. Accordingly, the central space was patterned after an Italian palace, with columns sweeping four stories into the air and a fountain playing in the center. This space was used for a number of inaugural balls in the 1800s.

I was fortunate enough to arrive on a day when tours were being given, so I received an inside look at this wonderful national treasure. Here are some of the high points.

As they were restoring the building, they discovered that part of the director’s suite had this marvelous painted ceiling. It has been cleaned and is being refurbished. It reminded me of the Regency.

A thin metal track runs along the entire ceiling of the walkway along the tippy top floor. Our guide said that when papers must be moved from office to office, the workers would place them in a basket, hook the basket up over the track, and push it along over their heads by use of a paddle until they reached the right office. I stared at her, amazed. They were the first paper pushers!

At the very top are alcoves to house the busts of those who had served in the Civil War. Unfortunately, when the director appealed to the Smithsonian for busts, he was refused. The National Building Museum purchased multiple sets of 8 busts to represent those involved in buildings (architects, builders, etc.). Those are now placed randomly to fill the holes.

The walkway around each floor is edged with columns that are apparently hollow. This is known because someone carved a hole in one. A special camera was brought in and inserted into the hole to confirm materials, only to find that the column was filled with copies of the Declaration of Independence, newspapers from the 1880s, and other documents. More digging through the director’s papers from the time led to the discovery that he had intended several of the columns as time capsules. He’d reasoned that the building would not stand forever, and, when some future people tore it down, he wanted them to know about the people from long ago who had built it.

The various displays in the building are well worth the price of admission, but it should be noted that the building itself, the museum shop, and the café are open to the public free of charge. You can find the National Building Museum at 401 F Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is open from Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm and Sunday from 11am to 5pm. For more on its illustrious history, see https://www.nbm.org/about/historic-home/

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia

People who love history throng to Philadelphia to ogle the Liberty Bell and tour Independence Hall. But there’s a little-known gem just a block or so away for those whose hearts belong to the nineteenth century. The Second Bank of the United States houses a portrait gallery with wonderful paintings from the late 1700s and early 1800s. And the building itself harkens to the pillared halls of the Regency.

The Second Bank was built in the Greek Revival style, beginning in 1819. It was completed in 1824. When I visited 18 months ago, I saw a number of style choices that reminded me of early nineteenth century England. For example, this window still uses the interior shutters visible in such notable mansions as Apsley House in London.

And doesn’t the pink passage near the main portrait display look just like the entryway to an aristocrat’s town house?

The portraits themselves are marvelous, depicting dress and accessories of the time. The hat!

Many of the portaits are by local artist Charles Willson Peale, who painted people he felt exemplified a self-sacrificing nature and were strong civic supporters. Some of the individuals are government or business leaders, but there is more than one lady in the bunch. Other portraits are by his son Rembrandt (Charles took his painting seriously, apparently), brother James, and British artists James and Ellen Sharples.

There’s another set of Regency paintings at the Second Bank, but I doubt many find it. The stone steps in front prohibit accessibility, so second entrance was created on the west side for those mobility impaired. It brings you in to a basement area, past brickwork I suspect is original and along some delightful life-sized drawings of early nineteenth-century ladies and gentlemen. Of course, I had to stop and visit.

The Second Bank is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 5pm. Learn more about it at the National Park Service website.

I’m sure you can picture yourself here

Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: The Kennel Club Library and Art Gallery

I have a list—a very, very long list—that continues to grow each time I delve into research for a book. It’s a list of places related to the nineteenth century that I’d love to visit (and I few I already have). This year I’ll be sharing them with you, so you can add to your list too.

I came across this one recently purely by accident, but my wonderful critique partner Kristy J. Manhattan and I are already making plans to go to the Kennel Club Library in London next time we’re in England.

The Kennel Club was the first of its kind in the world, a club devoted to the showing and health of dogs. Dog shows and field trials were gaining in popularity in England toward the middle of the nineteenth century, and the founders wanted a way to standardize rules and ensure no harm came to the animals. Founded in 1873, the Kennel Club published its first registry of purebred dogs, its Stud Book, a year later.

The Kennel Club library includes all its Stud Books, listing animals and owners, as well as catalogues from many historic dog shows. Some books predate the club by more than two centuries. Can you imagine what you might learn about our nineteenth century heroes and heroines? Did some manly duke prefer to show Pekinese? Was there a dainty lady who distinguished herself for breeding gun dogs?

In addition, the Kennel Club makes available its art gallery, featuring thousands of paintings depicting dogs through the ages. Many pieces have been borrowed from private collections or major English collections such as the Tate. Artists include such renowned nineteenth century painters as award-winning landscape artist Richard Ansdell and prolific puppy painter Arthur Wardle.

You can learn more about the library and art gallery at the websites, including directions, hours of operation (by appointment only), and holdings.    

You can also get the details on the Twilight Bark, I suspect. 😊