Famous horticulturist’s 1906 Craftsman house in Portland Heights for sale at $1.3M

A well-preserved 1906 Craftsman house in Portland Heights is a showcase of the city’s early tastemakers. The original owner, celebrated horticulturist Louis Pfunder, hired respected architect Emil Schacht to design a trophy home filled with stained glass windows by Povey Brothers Studio, known as the Tiffany of the Northwest.

The richly historic residence at 2211 S.W. Vista Ave. was listed for sale at $1,325,000 on Sept. 9, and an offer was accepted eight days later.

Some of the same artisans who later worked on the 1914 Pittock Mansion, now a Portland museum, were hired by Pfunder to represent his profession as a floral artist and display their high level of craftsmanship. The residence and gardens on an elevated double corner lot were also positioned for privacy and to receive varied exposure to natural light, said broker Kishra Ott of Windermere Realty Trust, who shares the listing with broker Dan Volkmer, also of Windermere Realty Trust.

The Arts and Crafts-influenced foursquare house has 4,904 square feet of living space. The living room’s Siberian oak floor is accented with walnut inlays. The basalt fireplace has an ornate fireplace screen and brick hearth, and nearby is a built-in cabinet with a fleur-de-lis design in the leaded glass doors and a series of artistic window panes that depict water lilies.

The music room’s four art glass windows have a tulip motif, and the formal dining room’s French doors with leaded diamond panes open to the wraparound porch and steps to the gardens, lawn and patio.

A vintage postcard photo of the home guided the current owners to remove a simplified porch installed in the 1970s and hire Shepard Bell Construction to restore the delicate curve of the front porch.

Improvements also included systematic upgrades as well as historically sensitive updates to the kitchen and bathrooms. Neil Kelly remodeling and home improvement company created the new kitchen using period-appropriate elements such as Rejuvenation light fixtures, Pratt + Larson handmade ceramic tile and quarter-sawn cabinetry.

Four bedrooms and two bathrooms are on the second story. A powder room, adjacent to the living room, also has Povey art glass windows.

The third floor, with built-in cabinets made of old-growth fir and walk-in eaves space, works as a media room and office. A window in the southeast-facing alcove frames the city skyline, Columbia River and Mount Adams. The high-ceiling basement has more than 1,400 square feet of flexible space.

Ott told The Oregonian/OregonLive this is a home for all ages and stages, from a family to a professional couple “who values history and architecture, and enjoys hosting and entertaining.”

History of the house

The Louis G. Pfunder House is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a distinctive example of the early Craftsman style introduced by Schacht for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The public’s positive reaction to the Craftsman, which was radically different than ornate Victorian-era dwellings, and the housing boom and population explosion triggered by the fair, forever cemented the demand for what has become Portland’s signature home style.

Both Pfunder and Schacht admired Gustav Stickley’s American Arts and Crafts movement philosophy of spotlighting craftsmanship, harmonizing homes with their natural environment, and fostering a spiritual connection with nature while prioritizing natural light, explained Ott.

Pfunder was born in Germany in 1845 and learned floral culture and garden planning in Switzerland before moving to the United States. In 1866, he assisted with the planting and landscaping of New York City’s Central Park, followed by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. He arrived in Portland in 1868 to design a conservatory for Portland mayor William S. Ladd, and later Pfunder landscaped the South Park Blocks and introduced new plants to the region.