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The Robert F. Lytle House

A Mansion in the Mediterranean Style
1914 NE 22nd Avenue

Original Owner Robert F. Lytle
Architect David L. Williams
Builder McHolland Bros.
Year of Construction 1911-12
Architectural Style Colonial Revival/Mediterranean
Date Listed on National Register 1983
Lumberman Robert Lytle and his wife Ida built this grand mansion in 1912 for the huge sum of $46,000.  Its architect was David L. Williams, who had built a reputation in Portland as an important designer of great homes for the rich and famous.  The style of the home is a composite of Colonial Revival (the great Corinthian columns at the entrance), and Mediterranean style as reflected in the Italianate window shapes and tile roof.  

Just two years after its construction, it was sold to pulp mill owner William Inman.  Inman made his fortune with the founding of the Hoaguim Lumber and Shingle Company in Washington State just before the enormous building boom that gripped Portland in the years after the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905.  In 1920, the Inman's sold the home to Willard P. Hawley, also a forest products industrialist.  Mr. Hawley's interests included the Hawley Pulp and Paper Company in Oregon City (now Blue Heron), St. Helen's Pulp & Paper Company (now the Boise Cascade plant) and other businesses.

While some sources connect this house to the early days of radio station KGW in Portland, the house was, in fact, the site of studios for radio station KGY in Portland in 1921 and 1922.  At that time KGY had the most powerful broadcast signal in the city and was heard as far away as Philadelphia and Honolulu.  According to Hawley family members, the very first paid commercial broadcast by a radio station in the U.S. emanated from the studio in this house on behalf of a Portland ice cream store.

Like many of the really large homes in Irvington, this house was badly neglected in the 1960's and 1970's, but over the last 20 years it has been carefully restored for operation as one of Portland's most notable bed and breakfasts.  Most of the original fixtures and finishes remain, and the furnishings have all been carefully selected to complement a fine early 20th Century home.  Fine French and Austrian chandeliers illuminate the original hand-painted French wallpaper and African mahogany trim.  The abundant leaded glass was supplied by Povey Brothers Glass works here in Portland.  (The Povey brothers lived in Irvington -- one of their houses survives and is on the National Register too.)

In 1983, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its association with a prominent area industrialist and as a fine example of the work of architect David Williams.

 

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This page updated with information from the descendants of Willard P. Hawley on November 25, 2003.