| SUMMARY STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
The Doriot/Rider Log House, built c.1925, is locally significant for its architectural merit as the only known remaining log structure built during the historic period in the Tigard area. Log houses have long symbolized the pioneering spirit of America. This building represents a period of renewed interest in the rustic qualities and relaxed atmosphere inherent in log house materials, design, and construction. It was built by H.G. and Delpha Doriot as a guest house for friends and family who visited them during the 1920-1930s. The rural nature of Bull Mountain in the Tigard area lent itself to the Doriots’ participation in the trend of building log houses in the mid-1920s when travel and recreational opportunities were expanding and rustic architecture was popularized by the Arts and Crafts movement and the National Park Service. This house also illustrates the patterns of growth of Tigard as it expanded. The need for more permanent housing occurred during the 1940s. After renting the house for a couple of years, Charles and Alberta Rider purchased it in 1947. They occupied the home as their primary residence for approximately the next sixty years. The Doriot/Rider log house retains its historic integrity, including its setting and all interior and exterior materials, design, and craftsmanship. It is locally significant for its architectural merit that describes the participation on a local level in a national trend of building rustic log houses in the 1920s-1930s before the events of the 1940s resulted in its transformation to more traditional living accommodations.
ARCHITECTURAL CONTEXT
One- and two-story log houses were built in towns and settlements across the country until about the middle of the nineteenth century, and in many areas, particularly in the West, as well as the Midwest and southern mountain regions, logs continued to serve as a basic building material despite the introduction of wooden balloon-frame construction. Through the lat- eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, frontier settlers erected log cabins as they cleared land, winding their way south in and along the Appalachian valleys through the backcountry areas of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They moved westward across the Appalachian Mountain barrier into the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, transporting their indispensable log craft with them, into Kentucky and Tennessee, and as far to the southwest as eastern Texas. Around the mid-nineteenth century, successive generations of fur traders, metal prospectors, and settlers that included farmers and ranchers began to construct log buildings in the Rocky Mountains, the Northwest, California, and Alaska.
In the 1870s, wealthy Americans initiated the Great Camp Movement for rustic vacation retreats in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Developers such as William Durant, who used natural materials, including wood shingles, stone, and logs--often with its bark retained to emphasize the rusticity--designed comfortable summer houses and lodges that blended with the natural setting. Durant and other creators of the Rustic style drew upon Swiss chalets, traditional Japanese design, and other sources for simple compositions harmonious with nature.
Various journals and magazines beginning in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries have described a fascination with the American log house. The popularity of the log house and its association with the spirit of adventure and departure from the stresses of rapidly growing and polluted cities provides a nostalgic look at our history. An article in Architectural Record written in 1903 discussed the need for the recreational home. “If anywhere in our land architecture has a national touch, if any class of buildings emanates directly from the people, the homes built by families of moderate means in the country must show that touch and spring from that demand. … One walks slower instinctively and turns contemplative. Smoothing out wrinkles and inducing sleep, it affords the best antidote to the uneasiness and flutter of city nerves.”
How to Build Houses, Lodges and Bungalows, prepared by the editorial staff of Popular Science Monthly in 1934, also demonstrates the attitude that having a place to escape from daily pressures is a requirement for “modern” living as it discusses the necessity of building a simple house. An article in House Beautiful from 1928 states that “House building is an art, not a science. Charm lies in the inexactness of each stick and timber.”
By the early-twentieth century, the popularity of "rustic" architecture had revived log construction throughout the country, and in many areas where it had not been used for decades. No other architectural form has so captured the imagination of the American people than the log cabin. From the turn of the century through the 1920s, Gustav Stickley and other leaders of the Craftsman Movement promoted exposed log construction. Stickley wrote about the architectural development of the log house, emphasizing that it was the simplicity of the buildings, including the “bare beauty of the logs themselves with their long lines and firm curves. Then there is the open charm of the structural features which are not hidden under plaster and ornament.”
During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) used log construction extensively in many of the country's National and State parks to build cabins, lean-tos, visitor centers, and maintenance and support buildings that are still in service. Historic log buildings regardless of whether they are of horizontal or vertical construction, or whether they are eighteenth-century log houses or early twentieth-century Rustic style cabins, are rare. Rustic style architecture became synonymous with the National Park Service.
The Rustic Style became a cornerstone of the National Park Service’s attitude that “buildings should blend in with their natural surroundings and natural settings could influence architecture.” The majority of guest lodges built in the National Parks through the first decades of the twentieth century were log and stone buildings constructed in what came to be known as the National Park Service Rustic Style.
The high point in the development of rustic design occurred in the late twenties and spread throughout the nation during the work-relief programs of the New Deal Era. Character-defining features of rustic architecture include: Native materials, architectural simplicity reminiscent of pioneer craftsmen, implied association with the landscape, exposed log construction and structural members, stone foundations and fireplaces, handcrafted details based on the Arts and Crafts influence
The study of vernacular architecture and log buildings provides insight into historic perspectives related to the common person, expanding our understanding of the American culture. “It is essential to an improved comprehension of historic truth that log houses and construction be understood not as some jolly survival of some imaginary primitive pioneer era but…as a complicated and systematic order of building that offers significant meanings to scholars and students of cultural expression. What seems casually to be a simple log hut may be read as a complex and evocative document containing interesting messages about how people conceived of shelter, of craftsmanship, of self-image, of life.”
HISTORY OF TIGARD
Tigard was originally settled by several families, the most noteworthy of which was the Tigard family, headed by Wilson M. Tigard. Arriving in the area known as "East Butte" in 1852, the family settled and became involved in organizing and building a school, a general store (which starting in 1886 housed the area's post office) and a meeting hall, and renamed East Butte to "Tigardville." A religious organization built the Emanuel Evangelical Church at the foot of Bull Mountain, south of the Tigard store in 1886. A blacksmith shop was opened in the 1890s by John Gaarde across from the Tigard Store, and in 1896 a new school was opened to handle the growth the community was experiencing from an incoming wave of German settlers.
The period between 1907 and 1910 marked a rapid acceleration in growth as Main Street blossomed with the construction of several new commercial buildings, including Germania Hall (a two-story building featuring a restaurant, grocery store, dance hall, and rooms to rent), a shop/post office, and a livery stable. Limited telephone service began in 1908. In 1910, the arrival of the Oregon Electric Railway accelerated the development of Main Street and pushed Tigardville from being merely a small farming community into a period of growth. The town was renamed Tigard by the railroad company to greater distinguish it from the nearby Wilsonville, and the focus of the town reoriented northeast towards the new railroad stop.
Electricity was introduced in 1911, as the Tualatin Valley Electric Company joined Tigard to a service grid with Sherwood and Tualatin. William Ariss built a blacksmith shop on Main Street in 1912 that eventually evolved into a modern service station. In the 1930s the streets and walks of Main Street were finally paved, and another school was established to accommodate growth. The city was incorporated in 1961.
The subject property is located on the southwestern edge of Tigard, in part of the Bull Mountain hill area that has an elevation of 711 feet. G.W. Tefft of Beaverton told Lewis McArthur, author of Oregon Geographic Names, that it was named for a band of wild cattle that ranged on the hill during the days of the pioneers. The cattle were gradually killed off with the exception of one bull, and thus the descriptive name was attached to this hill. SW Bull Mountain Road was paved up past Bull Mountain to the west when the Riders purchased the Doriot house, along with 20 acres, in 1947. Electricity was available to this area at that time, and an electric pump (in the now non-contributing house on the south side) provided water to the log house and four other homes in the Bull Mountain area. The area was sparsely developed until recently, with much of the surrounding residential growth having occurred within the past ten to twenty years.
HISTORY OF PROPERTY
The property is located within a 320-acre parcel made available through the Homestead Act to John M. and Sarah A. Marble on 18 March 1881. They received ownership in 1910. Arthur F. and Olive Frewing purchased 160 acres of the property on 6 March 1911. A quitclaim deed was issued to H.G. and Delpha L. Doriot in 1919. Research indicates that the Doriots were the builders the non-contributing house on the site, and the log house, which is the subject of this nomination.
Harry Garfield Doriot was born in Columbia City, Indiana on July 30, 1881, to Emile Doriot from Berne, Switzerland, a farmer, and Alice Mettert, from Ohio. He was a receiver for Reid Murdock & Co. (one of the largest wholesale grocery distributors in America in 1929). Delpha Loy Rouch was born in Columbia City, Indiana on 30 April 1886, to Cornelius Rouch, a farmer from Columbia City, and Sarah Agnes Rouch, from Wooster, Ohio. H.G. and Delpha were married on 28 September 1907 in Columbia City, Indiana. It is not known when they moved to Oregon.
The Doriots built a two-story Dutch Colonial house on the property. Local histories indicate the log house was built on top of a large concrete structure used to wash and dry English walnuts that grew on the property. Reportedly Mr. Doriot harvested logs from this property to build a guest house for their family and friends to spend the night when they came to dance and party at the grange hall, located on the corner of 133rd and Bull Mountain Road (south and up the hill, accessed by the road on the west side of the subject property). Other than the use of harvested logs from the property, it is not known how long it took to construct the building, who designed it, or where the additional materials were purchased.
During the 1940s, the Doriots rented the log house to military men and their families. Charles and Alberta Rider first rented the house in 1945 from Delpha Doriot (then a widow), and purchased it in 1947. Mrs. Doriot continued to live in the Dutch Colonial house until about 1949 before moving to Portland, after which the Riders rented the Dutch Colonial house to young families. At some unknown date, but thought to be in the 1970s, the second story of the Dutch Colonial house burned and it was rebuilt with only one level.
Charles Rider was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1901. Alberta Rider was born in Pima, Arizona in 1913. Charles and Alberta were married in 1945 in Arizona. Charles was an electrical engineer. He served in both WWI and WWII as a radio technician, installing communications systems in the South Pacific islands during the Second World War. Shortly after Charles was discharged from the military, they, along with Alberta’s two children from a previous marriage, Craig and Earline, moved to Bull Mountain where they rented the log house located at 14850 SW 132nd Terrace. Shortly thereafter, in 1947, the Riders purchased the log house. Charles (known as Ren) and Alberta had a son in 1954, and named him Douglas after the more than fifty Douglas-fir trees on the property.
Charles later worked for Altec Lansing, installing sound systems up and down the West Coast. Most of his work took place in theatres, including the Joy Theatre in Tigard, when the movies went to talking pictures or “talkies.” Throughout his career, he continued to install, upgrade, and service theatre sound systems until his retirement.
Earline and Craig attended the original Charles F. Tigard Elementary School. Craig later became a standout football player for Tigard High School. In his senior year he was voted Most Valuable Player and received a football scholarship to Lewis and Clark College in Portland. He played football at Lewis and Clark for four years. Earline was in the first class to attend the new Tigard High School on Durham Road. In her free time she enjoyed riding her horse around Bull Mountain. Earline attended Lewis and Clark College on an academic scholarship.
In the late 1950s, after Charles retired, he, Alberta, and Douglas took a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. They enjoyed their visit so much they decided to rent out their log cabin in Tigard and returned to Guadalajara for six years, where Alberta enrolled in the College of Guadalajara to learn Spanish. The Rider family then returned to their log house where Douglas graduated from Tigard High School. He later enrolled in professional clown school and became an entertainer.
Alberta was active in the local square-dancing club at the Grange Hall on Pacific Highway in Tigard. She played the piano for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and also played piano at weddings and funerals. Alberta taught Sunday school for her church and joined Toastmistresses to become a better public speaker.
Charles passed away in October of 1980, after which Alberta became engaged in as many activities as possible to stay busy and overcome her loneliness. At age 68, Alberta enrolled in music classes at Portland Community College and learned to write her own music. She took several other classes, and submitted her transcripts to Eastern Arizona College to graduate with an Associate of Arts degree at the age of seventy. During that time, she also started ballroom dancing and continued to compete in dancing competitions until she was ninty years old.
In 1994, Alberta Rider sold a portion of her land adjacent to her log cabin to the Tigard-Tualatin School district, where the Alberta Rider Elementary School was to be built. Construction for the school was completed in November, 2005. Under the sales agreement, Alberta would be allowed to live on the property for as long as she wished. Today, Alberta’s log house shares a common boundary with the elementary school that bears her name.
CONCLUSION
The Doriot/Rider Log House, built c.1925, is locally significant as one of a few remaining historic resources in the Tigard area, and as the only known historic house to be constructed of logs. Only two other properties in Tigard are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Shaver-Bilyeu House, a Queen Anne style house at 16445 SW 92nd Avenue, built in 1928, is listed for its architectural and historic significance. The John W. Tigard House, an Eastlake Style house at 10310 SW Canterbury Lane, built in 1879, is also listed for its architectural and historic significance.
The Doriot/Rider Log House is architecturally significant as a vernacular log building reflecting a period when rustic architecture, characterized by simple construction to blend with nature and provide a haven from the hectic lives of a post-industrial world, was popular. It exemplifies the characteristics of the Rustic style architecture popular during the first half of the twentieth century. These features include the use of native materials, the architectural simplicity reminiscent of pioneer craftsmen, the exposed log construction and structural members, the stone fireplace, and the handcrafted details of particularly the light fixtures that are based on the Arts and Crafts influence, and its association with the landscape amid the forested Bull Mountain area of Tigard,
The long-term use of the Doriot/Rider Log House as a permanent residence stemming from the need for housing in the 1940s reflects the changing needs in the area. The recreational aspect of the “cabin” was maintained even though the use of the house became more permanent in the World War II era when housing was at a premium. The suburbanization of Tigard and the area immediately surrounding the Doriot/Rider house reflects the changes that with the proliferation of housing subdivisions of the 1950s through the 1990s. The Doriot/Rider Log House is located on a lot that remains as an oasis in a predominately densely populated residential area, providing a reminder of the 1920s through the 1940s. It retains its historic setting, materials, design, and craftsmanship, which reflects a significant period of local history, and is locally eligible as one of the only remaining historic resources in the city of Tigard. |
