USA: Oregon, Portland – The Pittock Mansion

🏛️ The Pittock Mansion, Portland – History, Mist, and Mannequins

Perched up in the wooded West Hills above Portland, the Pittock Mansion is one of those places that makes you feel mildly inadequate the moment you clap eyes on it. It was built as a private home. For one family. Forty-six rooms. I’ll just leave that there.

The man behind it all was Henry Pittock, born in London in 1836 before emigrating to America and eventually fetching up in Oregon, where he built a publishing empire, most notably as the long-time owner of The Oregonian newspaper. He was, by all accounts, the sort of energetic, outdoorsy Victorian gentleman who makes the rest of us look workshy. To give you some idea of the man’s spirit, on 11th July 1857, Henry – then just in his early twenties – became the first recorded person to reach the summit of Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest peak at 11,249 feet, doing so alongside four friends with none of the modern kit we’d now consider absolutely essential. No Gore-Tex. No energy gels. Remarkable.

Henry loved the woods and had set his heart on building a grand home up in the forested West Hills, well away from the bustle of the city below. His wife Georgiana, however, had rather different ideas. Georgiana was a formidable woman in her own right – she was instrumental in founding what became the world-famous Portland Rose Festival, an annual celebration that has been running since 1907 and which remains one of the city’s most beloved traditions to this day. Understandably, she had no particular wish to be marooned in the trees, away from her friends, her gardens, and her social life. She was also, by this point, recovering from the effects of a stroke, which made the prospect even less appealing.

Henry’s solution was to build her something so spectacular that she simply couldn’t say no. Construction began around 1909, and the finished mansion – completed in 1914 – was a 46-room French Renaissance château-style pile, with room enough for their children and grandchildren to move in with them. This wasn’t entirely selfless, it has to be said. The Pittocks were both well into their seventies by the time building started, and the rather unkind – but probably accurate – historical speculation is that Henry was also ensuring his two children, neither of whom had quite matched their father’s considerable success in life, would always have a roof over their heads. Every family has one.

For 1914, the house was extraordinarily modern. It came equipped with a central vacuum system, intercoms between rooms, indirect electric lighting, a private lift, and a walk-in refrigerator. While most of Portland was still getting to grips with indoor plumbing, the Pittocks were essentially living in a prototype smart home. Georgiana, it seems, came round to the idea.

Sadly, neither of them got to enjoy it for very long. Georgiana died in 1918, aged 72. Henry followed the very next year in 1919, at the age of 84. The family continued to live in the mansion until 1958, when it was finally put up for sale. It didn’t sell – perhaps unsurprisingly, given that running a 46-room house is not everyone’s idea of a relaxing retirement – and then, in October 1962, the infamous Columbus Day Storm tore through the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the most powerful extratropical cyclones ever to hit the continental United States, with wind gusts recorded at over 100 mph across Oregon, and it left the already-neglected mansion in a seriously sorry state. The owners began seriously considering demolition.

What happened next was rather heartening. The local community rallied and raised $75,000 in just three months to help the City of Portland purchase the property. Moved by this show of public spirit – and acknowledging that the mansion represented a genuinely irreplaceable piece of local history – the City bought the estate in 1964 for $225,000. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, which is the American equivalent of English Heritage slapping a blue plaque on something and telling everyone to leave it alone.

Our visit happened to coincide with the mansion’s annual Christmas celebrations, and we were rather glad it did. Each of the rooms had been beautifully dressed for the holidays, and the organisers had gone the extra mile by placing mannequins throughout the house, dressed in period costumes generously loaned by the local opera company. It sounds like it might be slightly unnerving – and there were one or two moments when a figure in a darkened corner gave us a mild start – but in truth it worked beautifully and really did get us into the festive spirit. As we arrived, the mansion was shrouded in thick winter mist – entirely typical of Portland in December, a city that seems to spend much of the winter looking as though it’s been badly Photoshopped. We scurried inside fairly sharpish to escape the damp and cold, which in retrospect was no great hardship, given that the interior turned out to be rather splendid. We’d also had the good sense to arrive early, which meant we largely avoided the crowds. Always arrive early. This is one of the few pieces of travel advice I can offer with any real confidence.

Beyond the main house, tucked away on the estate, is a charming little gatehouse where the gamekeeper and his family would once have lived. It was neat, cosy, and thoroughly manageable – the sort of place where you could actually imagine doing the washing up without needing a map. We agreed, quietly, that we’d rather live there than in the big house. Forty-six rooms is all very well, but someone has to hoover them.

By the time we’d finished exploring both houses and ventured back outside, the weather had done that thing it occasionally does in Portland – relented. The morning mist had begun to thin and burn off, and actual sunshine made a tentative appearance. From the grounds, the views across Portland opened up magnificently, with the snow-capped peaks of the Cascades – including Mount Hood itself, Henry’s old stomping ground – visible in the distance. It was, genuinely, rather lovely.

We spent a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours wandering around the Pittock Mansion and its grounds, and we’d recommend it without hesitation to anyone with even a passing interest in Portland’s history. It’s grand without being cold, fascinating without being dry, and just the right side of eccentric. Rather like Portland itself.