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2004
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“Astoria’s Hotel Elliott Perfect For Romantic Weekend”
April 6, 2003 in the Sunday Oregonian Travel Section cover story.
Reprinted with permission from the author.
ASTORIA: NEW LIFE FOR AN OLD TOWN by Richard Fencsak
(Summary): From renovated elegance of downtown's Hotel Elliott to fine restaurants featuring Northwestern cuisine, the historic seaport is undergoing a renaissance. Two words stand out in bold black letters on the huge, 79-year-old sign painted on the north side of Astoria's Hotel Elliott: Wonderful Beds.
Chester Trabucco can't stop talking about them.
"We felt an obligation," says Trabucco, an Astoria native and partner in the local development company that bought and refurbished the hotel, which reopens this month.
"If we were going to keep the sign, we would have the most comfortable and elegant beds in the region."
During a tour, Trabucco urges me to plop down on a queen-size bed lavishly covered with a burgundy duvet draped over 460-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Instantly, my back is enveloped by the simultaneously firm yet plush bedding, and my head slowly sinks into one of the four goose-down pillows hidden beneath patterned pillow shams. Ahhhhh . . . yes. Wonderful Beds.
A downtown Astoria landmark since 1924, the Hotel Elliott has just completed a two-year, $3.5 million renovation. Dark brown mahogany wainscoting wraps the lobby walls. The original mahogany-topped fir reception desk welcomes guests, with the original key box hanging behind it and the old cord-board telephone system on display.
A gold-leaf frieze along the perimeter of the ceiling has been meticulously restored, and the walls are hung with historical photos and artwork of Astoria and environs.
In the 1920s, the old hotel had 68 rooms. Now the Elliott offers 21 standard rooms and six suites ranging in price from $105 to $275 a night.
Trabucco guides me to the top floor, which eventually will accommodate four additional premium suites, plus an opulent $650-a-night presidential suite that will feature a circular staircase winding to a crow's nest room adjacent to a rooftop garden and outfitted with another of those signature Elliott beds.
Flashing a ready smile and conversing with a quick wit, Trabucco is at home showing off "his" hotel.
On the third floor, he leads me into a premium suite appointed with an oversized armoire, antique overhead globe lighting and a bathroom finished with floor-to-ceiling stone, including a heated limestone floor. Gazing out one of the windows, I look down on the rooftops along nearby Commercial Street and, a couple of blocks distant, the four-mile-wide Columbia River. A green-and-black-hulled container ship steams through the panorama, backdropped by Washington's forested Coast Range mountains.
Oh, yes. The king-size bed is Wonderful.
I'm no stranger to Astoria; I've lived here for more than 20 years. During the past decade, I've watched this town of 10,000 undergo a transformation — at times agonizingly slow — from a rough-edged, down-on-its-luck seaport to a desired Zip code attracting investment capital. The Hotel Elliott is but one chapter in the continuing saga of Astoria's rejuvenation.
If you haven't visited in a while, you might think of Astoria as rife with permanently closed canneries and a decaying downtown. True, the salmon canneries are gone, but the city is experiencing a surge of development in restaurants, lodgings and historic attractions.
Downtown renaissance
" Rather than remake the downtown as a faux attraction -- like turning it into a cute Scandinavian village -- the community recognized the lure of the town's historic character, its realness as a well-preserved 1920s downtown," says Paul Benoit, Astoria's community development director.
A Rhode Island native honored in 2001 by Gov. John Kitzhaber as Oregon's economic development leader of the year, Benoit has forged a public-private coalition that has initiated such projects as the riverfront walkway, street-end river parks and Mill Pond Village. The latter involved converting an old plywood mill site in East Astoria's Uppertown into a neo-traditional riverfront neighborhood.
Another project Benoit helped develop was the restoration of the Liberty Theater, a Mediterranean-style building across the street from the Elliott.
When it opened in 1925, the Liberty screened silent films. Through the 1930s it hosted vaudeville performances and lectures before becoming a movie house in the early '40s. In 1984, I remember waiting in a block-long line to see "The Goonies," one of the many movies that have been filmed in Astoria.
But by the mid-'90s, the Liberty was decrepit, inside and out. The last film I saw there was projected on a hanging sheet substituting for a screen.
Then, in 2000, the Liberty was reborn as a regional performing arts center that seats 800 and hosts performances ranging from plays to operas.< Steve Forrester, editor and publisher of The Daily Astorian newspaper and a prime player in the theater's rebirth, calls the Liberty one of the region's best examples of a 1920s vaudeville-motion picture palace.< "The Liberty adds excitement to Astoria and the north coast as a tourist destination," he says.
Revitalized waterfront
In 1983, former mayor Edith Henningsgaard convened a waterfront committee composed of city officials, business leaders and citizens. Benoit arranged for Jim Pettinari, a University of Oregon architecture professor, to assist. "He had his class make Astoria their studio," Benoit says.Committee members walked the waterfront and discussed some of the ideas generated by Pettinari's students. They decided that Astoria's Columbia River shoreline shouldn't shed its blue-collar identity for a row of trendy shops and boutiques.
"The waterfront has always been the heart of the community, and its heart has had a working character," Benoit says. "We wanted to retain that rough edge and still make the waterfront accessible."
In 1989, the city contracted with Murase Associates, a Portland landscape architecture firm, to implement the waterfront plan drafted by the committee.
The focus of the waterfront plan was to create an attraction first and foremost for the locals. "We figured if they liked it, visitors would too," Benoit says.
Now pedestrians, cyclists and skaters share the River Walk, which begins at the Sixth Street Pier (with a viewing tower for watching seals, sea lions and river traffic) and extends east for two miles. The route passes fishing boats being offloaded at processing plants, two U.S. Coast Guard cutters, the former Astoria railroad depot and a century-old salmon-receiving station. Finger piers with interpretive signs explain the role of bar and river pilots, identify fish and seabirds and tell about the ferries that used to link Astoria and Washington before the interstate bridge was completed in 1966.
Visitors and locals enjoy hopping aboard Old 300, a vintage trolley built in 1913 that runs the rails adjacent to the River Walk. Willis Van Dusen, Astoria's mayor, and Jim Wilkins, a former city commissioner, spearheaded the effort to acquire and refurbish the trolley, which used to serve San Antonio and, in the 1980s, ran between Lake Oswego and Portland. Every weekend (every day, in the summer) the clanging red-and-green trolley can be heard throughout downtown. Volunteer conductors point out sights during the 40-minute ride between the East Mooring Basin and the Port of Astoria.
Also at the port, which has switched from exporting logs to servicing vessels and welcoming cruise ships (12 are scheduled to visit in 2003), construction is planned this year on a three-story motel east of the Astoria Bridge. And a campus-style conference center will take shape sometime in 2004, according to Peter Gearin, the port's executive director.
Dining out
"When I moved here in 1995, there was a definite niche for fine dining in Astoria," says Berkeley, Calif., transplant Michael Henderson, who operates Home Spirit Bakery Cafe inside his tastefully restored 1892 Victorian home. Renowned for his chewy artisan loaves, flaky yeast-dough croissants, international dinners and the area's yummiest desserts, Henderson is among those relative newcomers who refused to adhere to the city's old sub-par culinary status quo.
Henderson joined one of the town's accomplished chefs, Uriah Hulsey, owner of the Columbian Cafe, a fixture since the mid-'80s. The small cafe is well-regarded for veggie-oriented lunches — a broccoli and cheese crepe and a wilted spinach salad redolent of walnuts and blue cheese are two standards — and wondrous seafood-pasta dinners, such as sturgeon picatta tossed with house fettuccine.
Former city commissioner Wilkins owns Cafe Uniontown, a traditional dinner house tucked beneath the Astoria bridge. At the Uniontown, look for comforting food with a Northwest spin — a mushroom strudel appetizer, lusty cioppino or a prodigious cut of charbroiled filet mignon wrapped with thick rashers of bacon and garnished with herbs and melted blue cheese.
One of my favorite hangouts is T. Paul's Urban Cafe, Astoria's hippest setting for everything from power lunches to romantic interludes, and a fine place to linger over a cup of java. Myriad salads, a selection of quesadillas and splendid clam chowder are some of the options.
Next door to the Columbian is the Voodoo Room (also owned by Hulsey), Astoria's most vibrant live-music venue. And a block away is the seasonal Sunday Market, a three-block-long outdoor emporium for food, art and crafted goods that runs from mid-May to mid-October.
History reigns here
The oldest permanent American settlement west of the Mississippi River, Astoria boasts more history than any Oregon city its size. The Astoria Regatta, a waterfront celebration held every August since the late 19th century, is said to the Northwest's longest-running festival. June's Scandinavian Festival celebrates the city's ethnic heritage with colorfully costumed dancers and yummy fare.
But the crown jewel of Astoria's historical attractions is the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Like a comely young girl who grows up into a beautiful woman, the maritime museum has evolved from a local attraction into a well-respected regional institution. Last year's $5 million revamping has expanded the museum and transformed the once-static Great Hall, where visitors can follow a U.S. Coast Guard rescue via a VHF radio transmitter, steer a towboat or listen to recorded accounts of fishing adventures. Six other galleries depict aspects of the region's maritime history, and the lightship Columbia, moored outside, is open to visitors.
Capt. George Flavel made his fortune as a river pilot and real estate magnate in the last half of the 19th century. His residence, constructed in 1885 and considered one of the Northwest's finest examples of Queen Anne architecture, houses the Capt. George Flavel House Museum. Ceilings 14 feet high and elaborate mantels above six fireplaces grace the interior, which also showcases pioneer exhibits and maritime artwork and memorabilia.
Uncrowded ocean beaches are 10 miles away at Warrenton's Fort Stevens State Park, locale of the 1906 Peter Iredale shipwreck, the Columbia River's massive South Jetty and a historical area with a military museum. On a bench of land above the Lewis and Clark River, Fort Clatsop National Memorial affords a look at how members of the Lewis and Clark expedition went about their daily chores and endured a miserable, rainy winter in 1805-06.
In fact, ever since Lewis and Clark told the world about winter on the Oregon coast, Astoria has suffered a less-than-positive reputation among travelers.
Trabucco aims to change that.
He wraps up my tour of the Hotel Elliott with a quick trip to the basement, the future setting for a wine cellar, bar and cigar lounge. Below-sidewalk-level passageways, part of the maze of catacombs that crisscross underneath downtown, will transport guests to nearby restaurants.
Astoria has long been known for its fine bed and breakfast inns, boasting more B&Bs than any other city on the Oregon coast. But now, there's also a posh downtown hotel.
"A lot of people put a lot of soul into it," Trabucco says.
Fortunately for road-weary travelers, they also didn't penny-pinch on the beds.
Richard Fencsak is an Astoria freelance writer and frequent contributor to The Oregonian's Travel section.
