This American Queen Anne style residence, originally located at 245 Church Street (now Courthouse Square), was built in 1886 for George Collins, a retired brick maker and former Superintendent of the Oregon Penitentiary, In 1908, he, his daughter Ester Chatten and her husband sold the house to Robert Downing for $5,000. Although remodeled into a duplex, the house stayed in the Downing family until the death of Hazel Downing Isbell in 1985. By that time, the formerly residential neighborhood had become commercial and the house stood between a gas station and an office building. The city was unable to purchase the house as part of the Riverfront Development (now A. C. Gilbert Discovery Village), but it was sold privately in 1988. A robbery had resulted in the loss of the original brass doorknobs and locksets. However the staircase railings and diamond-shaped windows had been safely stored in the house. When it was moved to the Chemeketa Street residential site in 1989, it was restored to its original interior design. It now serves as professional offices a just block outside the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District.
See 1963 photograph.
(NEN)
Thanks to Andy Zimmerman of the Statesman Journal for additional information added in October of 2013.
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