NWCT Hosts Third Annual Walking Tour of Historic Homes Today

NW Children's Theater & School (NWCT) and NW Neighborhood Cultural Center (NNCC) present, "The Stately Home Tour of Old NW/SW Neighborhoods", the 3rd Annual Walking Tour of Historic Homes. The Tour is Sun., May 4, 2014 from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. and will begin at the historic NNCC (originally known as the First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1909), located at 1819 NW Everett St., Portland, Oregon.

Tickets for this walking tour are $25 and are available at NWCT's website: www.nwcts.org or at NNCC/NWCT the day of the event. Tour participants will enjoy knowing that all proceeds will support Capital Improvements for the one of the neighborhood's most unique structures, the historic NNCC, and to upgrade the facilities for NWCT. Not up for walking? PDX Double Decker Bus will be on hand to take tour-goers from site to site. Bus rides are included with each Home Tour ticket purchase.

As tour-goers wander through our beautiful neighborhood and into these historic homes, they will meet their neighbors and friends, learn about the grit and glory of our city's founders, and marvel at the artistic craft.

The Stately Home Tour features the work of some of Portland's prominent early architects. Open for viewing by ticket holders will be homes designed by these early "rock stars" who gave Portland its Beaux Arts turn-of-the-century style when Seattle and San Francisco were still backwater villages.

Those who commissioned these homes were the pioneer stock who came West seeking better lives, achieved their goals and contributed to the weft and weave that is Portland today. Among them are a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, a peacemaker with Native tribal communities, a resident who came to Oregon on a horse, and of course a lumber baron! The parents of some of these residents came to Oregon in covered wagons.

Each home features special events to enhance the tour experience: slide shows of historic images never seen before by the public, insights by the Curator of Aurora Museum about Oregon's first utopian Christian commune, FREE ice cream from Ruby Jewel, performances by guitarists Jeff Ashton and Sean Frenette, and two neighborhood lions, Bing Sheldon and Bill Welch will lead a special viewing of NNCC at 2 p.m.

The Tour includes these sites: The Dr. & Mrs. Giesy Home (1899), The Captain Joseph Sladen Home (1893), The Cardwell / Holman Home (1905), The Edward King Home (1910), the newly renovated Henry & Hattie Fries Home (1905) and The First Church of Christ Scientist (1909) aka NNCC.

NWCT and NNCC thanks fellow event presenter, The Dan Volkmer Team and event sponsors: Arciform, Escape from New York Pizza, Kells, Kiva Tea Bar & Spa, Manor Fine Wares, Mark Benham Mortgage Express, PDX Double Decker, Pearl Medspa, Ruby Jewel, Tributes, Two Tarts, Uptown Hardware, Windermere Stellar and World Cup Coffee & Tea.

TICKETS 503-222-4480

Online sales available at www.nwcts.org

Illustration Credit: ©2014 Sandi McDowell