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Tag: Portland (Ore)

  • They Scoured Portland, Ore., for a Hundred-Year-Old House With a Story to Tell

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    Jamie McPartland and Peter Oviatt met 23 years ago in New York City, though neither was from the area. She had come from California, he from Ohio, and they found in each other a similar yen for travel and adventure.

    The couple flickered through odd jobs — watering office plants, bookkeeping, restaurant work — before earning graduate degrees: Mr. Oviatt has a doctorate in anthropology from M.I.T.; Ms. McPartland earned a master’s in creative writing from the New School. After they married and had a daughter — Oksana, now 9 — they continued to seek out wisdom through travel, living in AirBnBs and sublets for months at a time during her early childhood.

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    “We used change and stimulation to bind us,” said Ms. McPartland, 41. Their travels led them to France, where Mr. Oviatt studied truffle cultivation; Turkey and Morocco, where they waited out visa requirements; and southern Oregon, where Ms. McPartland’s parents had moved. She created a hand-drawn logbook for Oksana titled “Places You’ve Slept.”

    “I liked living a transient life. I thought it was the best,” Ms. McPartland said. “But then I realized it wasn’t good for my daughter. I started to long for a home we would stay in forever and have whatever forever is.”

    In January 2020, just before Covid-19 lockdowns began, the family landed in Portland, Ore. They liked the city, despite its rainy climate, and needed more stability for Oksana — and themselves. “I honestly just enjoy being able to slow down and just spend time with people, see movies, go get drinks,” said Mr. Oviatt, 43.

    He put his cultural anthropology training to work as a program director at a Montessori middle school, where he also teaches. Ms. McPartland began teaching high school French courses and continued working as an editor for other writers’ manuscripts.

    They were in their third Portland rental when Mr. Oviatt lost both of his parents to cancer. He used the inheritance they left to buy a house. “My parents always wanted us to settle down,” he said. “I think they would be happy to know that this is how the money was spent.”

    With up to $700,000 to spend, the couple wanted a modest house with two or three bedrooms and a garden. As a dedicated cycling family, they looked for places where they could have a bike workshop and rideable commutes to work and school. But more than that, they wanted to be good stewards of a home with history and character.

    “We’d never bought furniture before,” Ms. McPartland said. “I was almost 40 when I got furniture.”

    Dan Cronin for The New York Times

    At 1,450 square feet, this two-bedroom, 1.5-bath bungalow was the smallest home they considered. Built in 1906, it had been restored by the sellers, a woodworker and his wife, who had installed cypress and cedar facades inspired by traditional Japanese farmhouses. Inside, original wood floors were complemented by poured-concrete counters and custom rosewood cabinets in the stylish kitchen. The cobbled yard would make gardening difficult, and the living and dining rooms were not as sunny as the second floor, where the bedrooms shared the sole full bathroom. The couple worried about maintaining the woodwork, but the home was close to coffee shops, restaurants and a grocery store, and the impressive basement would make for a great bike workshop. The price was $696,000, with taxes of nearly $6,000.

    Works Real Estate

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    Kristen Millares Young

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  • Portland or Seattle? A Senior Couple Wanted an Urban Getaway for About $725,000.

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    Teresa and Marty Strelecky met while Mr. Strelecky was in the Navy and stationed in Bremerton, Wash., just across the Puget Sound from Seattle. After a stint in Mr. Strelecky’s native Chicago, the couple settled in West Seattle, where he worked as a lawyer and she was a stay-at-home mother to their four children, who are now adults.

    “We’re committed Pacific Northwesterners,” said Mr. Strelecky, who works at a real estate title insurance firm.

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    Still, the couple, both 73, always enjoyed a break from the rainy climate. Starting in around 2000, they bought and sold a series of second homes along the West Coast where they could feel warmer and dryer. The most recent was in Rancho Mirage, Calif., just outside Palm Springs.

    “In the desert, you lived like you were in a suburb and we realized, ‘Wow, what are we doing? We don’t like living in suburbs that much,’” Ms. Strelecky said.

    Instead, they figured, why not find something closer to home that they would use more often?

    Last fall, they started looking for a new place in Portland, Ore., a three-hour drive from their house in Seattle. They’d spent time in the area, including from 2014 to 2021, when they owned a hazelnut farm in nearby Newberg, Ore.

    “They really were attracted to the walkability, and also they really aligned with a lot of the ideology of Portland,” said Francisco Stoller, a local agent with Earnest Real Estate. He had helped the Streleckys buy the farm in 2014, and the couple hired him again for this search.

    Eventually they expanded their search to include Seattle, where Ms. Strelecky grew up and where three of their children live locally.

    The Streleckys hoped for a ground-floor unit with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a limited number of stairs and plenty of natural light, close proximity to public transportation, shops and restaurants. They didn’t want to pay more $725,000, but looked at a few homes above that amount to see if a price reduction was possible. Ideally, they’d sell the home in Rancho Mirage first, which would allow for an all-cash purchase. Otherwise, they’d need a mortgage.

    Amanda Lucier for The New York Times

    This two-bedroom, two-bath corner unit with 2,000 square feet was on the second floor of a 1997 building in the Goose Hollow neighborhood, west of downtown Portland. The Art Deco styling incorporated big windows with city views, a gas fireplace, and balconies off the living room, dining area and main bedroom. The main bedroom had a walk-in closet and an en suite bath, and was connected to the second bedroom by a set of sliding doors. The building, which offered a gym and a concierge, was two blocks from a light rail station, providing connections to nearby Washington Park, as well as to Portland International Airport. The price was $699,000, with monthly condo fees of $2,129 and annual taxes of $11,888.

    Windermere Realty Trust
    Jovelle Tamayo for The New York Times

    Just inside a gated courtyard, this one-bedroom, 1.5-bath townhouse from 1982 covered 1,290 square feet over two levels. An extensive renovation had turned the upstairs into a lofted studio with a study and added stainless-steel cross beams, giving it an industrial look. The first floor was open, with a steel-and-glass island in the kitchen. A small, street-facing patio was off a living room with a wood-burning fireplace. The famed Pike Place Market and charming Post Alley, with its plethora of restaurants, were within walking distance, as was a ferry terminal. The price was $799,000 (reduced from $850,000), and included a parking spot. The monthly HOA fee was $1,195, and annual taxes were $7,408.

    Windermere Real Estate Midtown

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    Evan Easterling

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