page_title: Jacob Kamm House
section_title: 1950 move
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Kamm House / 1950 move
caption_attribution_description: Jacob Kamm house, 2010-03-17. Jacob Kamm house, corner and entry detail, 2010-03-17.
context_page_description: The Jacob Kamm House, also called the Jacob Kamm Mansion, is a French Second Empire style mansion in Portland, Oregon, built in 1871. It was moved from its original location on SW 14th and Main to its current location in Goose Hollow in 1950 to make room for Lincoln High School's campus. It was purchased by preservationist Eric Ladd for $1,000 at auction and moved to its present location, along with two other houses Ladd was interested in preserving, at SW 20th and Jefferson, which was called "the colony."
context_section_description: In 1950, the house was moved to make room for Lincoln High School, which was moving from its South Park Blocks location, called Old Main. This was the third location for the school, which was the first high school in Portland and only the second in the West. The house was moved a short distance to Salmon and 18th in July 1950 for excavation of the high school and while Eric Ladd secured a final moving site. It was then moved to its 20th Avenue location around December 16, 1950, on wooden rollers, rather than wheels, since it was too heavy. The home was moved partway one day, and then was left standing on the road during a large storm. Since utility works was needed to disconnect and reconnect electrical lines crossing roads, the rest of the journey had to wait while utility crews repaired storm damage elsewhere in the city. The house was described as "barren and austere" by The Oregonian, which also noted its gas and electric chandeliers, decorative plaster wainscoting on the stairway flights, and inlaid hardwoods, though some rooms had been recovered in asphalt floor tiling. The move was coordinated by Allstate Construction.
  Two days before demolition on the house was to begin in 1950, Eric Ladd purchased the Kamm house for $1000 to move it to a colony of significant homes, later called the "Old Portland Colony", having three historic homes by 1965. The mansion was moved approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to 1425 SW 20th Avenue on a 10,000 square feet (930 m²) lot. Ladd intended to make it into three apartments, but ran a restaurant known as the Kamm House Restaurant out of it for four years beginning in 1955. A 1955 society page spread in a June 1955 The Oregonian discussed how guests arrived at the home dressed in clothing reminiscent of "the [1880s] when Portland social life saw one of its gayest periods", including arriving by horse and buggy. The restaurant had opened for an Oregon Historical Society benefit and reception for patrons of the society, with dinner being $100 per plate and 80 patrons in attendance. The restaurant could not get a liquor license for the first year. After the first two years, Eric Ladd simplified operations, did all of the baking for the restaurant himself, but still had to close the restaurant after another two years.
  Eric Ladd (1921-2000) was called "the idiosyncratic Portlander who was in the forefront of historic preservation" by The Oregonian at his death in 2000. He received an award from the Portland Beautification Association, inscribed "The Tenacious Preservationist". The Old Portland Colony also contained a replica of Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, Kentucky home, built for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The Lincoln home was opened as a museum and a sandwich shop in about 1956, but had a large fire some time later. By 1958, Eric Ladd was distracted by the Pittock Mansion, where he had moved.
caption: Quoin and horizontal siding detail
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