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NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address:477 NW Overlook Ave historic name:Amundsen, Roy E. and Hildur L., House
Gresham, Multnomah County (97030) current/other names:
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):1.0 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:3
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1961 second date: date indiv listed:07/15/2019
primary orig use: Single Dwelling orig use comments:
second orig use:
primary style: Modern Period: Other prim style comments:Northwest Regional, Modern Movement: Wrightian
secondary style: Contemporary sec style comments:
primary siding: Horizontal Board siding comments:
secondary siding: Stone:Other/Undefined
plan type: Other Late 20th Century Type architect:Harold Amundsen: Designer, Consulting Architect: Burton Jared Goodrich and Barney Grevstad
builder:Hans B. Grevstad and Harold Amundsen
comments/notes:
5/3/18 HRR submitted. TZ
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Gresham Northwest Neighborhood RLS 2012 Survey & Inventory Project 2012
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 07/15/2019
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date: 11/02/2012
Special Assessment
Status Term End Yr
Active 1st  2030
106 Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The Roy E. and Hildur L. Amundsen House, at 477 NW Overlook Avenue, is located west of downtown Gresham, Multnomah County, Oregon, in a neighborhood of mid-century houses (Figures 1 and 2). Completed in 1961, the house was erected on an irregularly shaped lot, facing east toward Overlook Avenue (Figure 3). The house sits on 0.32 acres (13,950 square feet). It has a large front and back lawn with perimeter plantings along the foundation. The 1,554 square foot, single-story residence is a wood-framed structure with intersecting flat roofs. It sits on a concrete foundation. The Amundsen House is significant as an intact, Wrightian-styled, architect-designed house built in one of Gresham’s fast developing mid-century neighborhoods. The house has most of the character-defining features commonly found in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian house designs, including horizontal orientation; single-story; no basement or attic space; a small size—around 1,500 square feet; floor-to-ceiling wood-framed windows and clerestory windows; a prominent hearth; a slab-on-grade foundation with radiant floor heating; a flat roof with wide overhanging eaves; simple entrance; and minimal ornamentation. Usonian houses used flush cabinets to create efficient storage without degrading the clean, simple lines of the design, and the Amundsen House features flush cabinetry. The home uses natural and local materials, such as sandstone quarried from Wilkinson, Washington, to construct the central hearth and western red cedar for the interior and exterior walls. Windows are wood-framed fixed, with some casement and levered windows. The residence has a built-up, asphalt flat roof over the main body of the house and a clerestory roof over the living room, with a slight pitch. The pitch was added in 2017 when the roof was repaired after failure. The pitch is not visible from the public right-of-way. The Amundsen House’s interior walls are finished with natural wide horizontal board-and-batten siding that matches the exterior of the house. Original fixtures and hardware are present throughout. The entrance to the house is centered on the façade and opens into the main body of the house. The house has three main volumes; the southernmost houses the kitchen, utility area, a bathroom, and a bedroom; the central volume (where the front entrance is located) contains the dining area and living room; and the northernmost section has two bedrooms and a bathroom. A two-car carport is located on the south façade. A concrete drive curves slightly from the street to the carport, and a sidewalk leads from the driveway to the front entryway. There are three non-contributing outbuildings on the site: two garden sheds, and a shed-roof, wood storage structure, all of which are outside of the period of significance. The house has undergone few alterations since its construction and has retained its character defining features. The Amundsen House has had only three owners since its design and construction. The house has retained its original materials and it has not been adversely altered from its original design. Necessary repairs have been sensitive to the house’s design, and the largest alteration to the building was the addition of a slight pitch to the roofline, which is not visible from the right of way. Therefore, the house has retained a very high level of historic integrity in its location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. The Roy E. and Hildur L. Amundsen House is an excellent example of the type and is remarkably intact and unaltered.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Roy E. and Hildur L. Amundsen House is locally significant under National Register Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level as an excellent, intact example of a Wrightian-styled, architect-designed residence in Gresham’s Northwest Neighborhood. The house displays many distinctive characteristics of Wright’s Usonian designs in its small size, slab-on-grade foundation with radiant floor heat, horizontal emphasis, natural ornamentation, use of floor-to-ceiling glass windows, central hearth, and minimal ornamentation. The period of significance is the year the house was constructed, 1961. The Amundsen House was designed by Harold Amundsen for his parents, Roy and Hildur, in 1960 when he was a student at University of Oregon. Amundsen was listed as the designer of the plan with Burton G. Goodrich and Barney E. Grevstad as the A.I.A consulting architects. Goodrich was one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most trusted Taliesin apprentices (1934 to 1942) and Grevstad (who was Harold Amundsen’s uncle) was a successful Seattle architect who had designed many modern commercial structures by this time, as well as several residential designs, including his own similarly-styled house in Seattle, Washington. Barney Grevstad’s father, Hans B. Grevstad, a Seattle homebuilder, came to Portland to build the Amundsen House.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Ames, David L., and Linda Flint McClelland. Historic Residential Suburbs: Guidelines for Evaluation and Documentation for the National Register of Historic Places. 2002. Amundsen, Roy and Hildur. Deed of Sale from Clifford Orth Construction Company Inc to Roy E. and Hildur L. Amundsen. 29 January 1959 (Filled on 13 February 1959). Deed book 1941 page 373. Multnomah County Records Office, Portland, Oregon. 1959. Amundsen, Roy and Hildur. Deed of Sale from Day-Blaine Company Inc to Roy E. and Hildur L. Amundsen. 29 January 1959 (Filled on 20 October 1960). Deed book 1941 page 373. Multnomah County Records Office, Portland, Oregon. 1960. Chilton, W. R., editor. Gresham: Stories of our Past, Campground to City. Gresham, Oregon: Gresham Historical Society. Clausen, Meredith L. Pietro Belluschi: Modern American Architect. Cambridge, Mass: MIT, 1999. Federal Writers' Project (Or.). Oregon: End of the Trail. 1940. Find a grave database. Hans Bastiansen Grevstad. Evergreen-Washelli Memorial Cemetery. 1978. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60012271. Accessed September 15, 2018. Houser, Michael C. Grevstad, Barney E. (1913 - 1982). Wewa Docomomo. http://www.docomomo- wewa.org/architects_detail.php?id=173. Accessed August 8, 2018. Langmead, Donald. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003. McAlester, Virginia. A Field Guide to American Houses. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. McArthur, Lewis A. and Lewis L. McArthur, Oregon Geographic Names (6th Edition), Portland, Oregon. Oregon Historical Society, 1992. Metsker Maps. Multnomah County, Oregon. 1927, 1944, and 195X. Available at Multnomah County Library. Accessed September 4, 2018 National Register of Historic Places, Gordon House, Silverton, Marion County, Oregon, National Register # 04001066. Polk & Co., R.L. Polk's Portland (Multnomah County, OR.) City Directory. Seattle, Washington: R.L. Polk & Co, 1953. Polk & Co, R.L. Polk's Portland (Multnomah County, OR.) City Directory. Seattle, Washington: R.L. Polk & Co., 1957. Polk & Co., R.L. Polk's Portland (Multnomah County, OR.) City Directory. Seattle, Washington: R.L. Polk & Co, 1959. Portland Maps. Assessor Data, Northwest Neighborhood, Gresham, Oregon, 2018. Sandoval, Hannah M., People That Changed the Course of History: The Story of Frank Lloyd Wright 150 Years After His Birth. 2017. Southern Pacific Company. Sunset: The Pacific Monthly. Menlo Park, Calif: Lane Pub, 1912. Volume 28: 128 Spencer, Robert C. 1900. "The work of Frank Lloyd Wright from 1893 to 1900". Architectural Review (Boston, Mass.). Digitized by Google. https://books.google.com/books?id=XotOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Frank+lloyd+Wright+book&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEqJ_VtndAhVjjFQKHbL9B20Q6wEIKjAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Accessed August 19, 2018. Ulysses S Grant High School. Memories 1957, Portland, Oregon: 1957. Available on Ancestry.com. Accessed August 5, 2018. United States. Bureau of the Census. Hans B. Grevstad. 15th census, Census Place: Seattle, King Washington, Enumeration District: 0048. 1930. Washington, D.C.: Digitized by the National Archives United States. Bureau of the Census. Roy Amundsen. 16th census, Census Place: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, Enumeration District: 37-359. 1940. Washington, D.C.: Digitized by the National Archives. United States Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records. Roy E. Amundsen. Confirmation. Immanuel Lutheran, Seattle, Washington. Available on Ancestry.com. Accessed September 10, 2018. 1916. University of Oregon. Graduation Convocation. Official Degree List. University of Oregon. Friday December 18, 1964. University of Oregon Library. Available at https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/11125. Accessed August 5, 2018. Vaughan, Thomas. Space, Style, and Structure: Building in Northwest America. Portland, Or: Oregon Historical Society, 1974. Washington State Archives. Olympia, Washington: Washington State Archives: Roy E. Amundsen and Hildur L. Grevstad Marriage Records. Available on Ancestry.com. Accessed September 13, 2018. 1936. Washington State Archives. Olympia, Washington: Washington State Archives: Barney E. Grevstad and Alma E. Reddekopp. Marriage Records. Available on Ancestry.com. Accessed September 13, 2018. 1936. Wright, Frank Lloyd. Architectural Record Monthly. May 1914. Vol. XXXV No. 5. Digitized by Google. Available on Google.Books.com. Accessed September 13, 2018. Drawings Barsanti, Jan. Original Amundsen House Drawings Sheets 1-8. Personal collection of owner, Gresham, Oregon. Newspapers Chippewa Herald-Telegram “What Makes a House a Home” Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. 22 Nov 1957: 8. The New York Times “Frank. Lloyd Wright Dies; Famed Architect was 89,” New York, New York. 10 April 1959: 1 The Oregonian “10 by 24-Foot Starter Home Offered on Portland Mart.” Portland, Oregon. 30 April 1950. P. 63. “Beaverton’s Church Plans Sanctuary’s First Service,” Portland, Oregon. 26 September 1959. “Oregon’s First Wright-Designed Home Planned,” Portland, Oregon. 11 August 1963: 119. “Designed for two with Pleasant View,” Portland, Oregon. 14 March 1954: 150 “Portlanders Plan Visits Over Easter; Service Families Travel to Stations,” Portland, Oregon. 19 April 1957 The Seattle Times “7 Skiers Named for U.S. Meet,” Seattle, Washington. 23 January 1960. “Architect Firm in New Office.” Seattle, Washington. 8 March 1953 “Hildur Louise Amundsen,” Obituary. Seattle, Washington. 25 June 2005. “Memorial Services set for architect, Barney E. Grevstad,” Seattle, Washington. 5 September 1982.