The up and downs of real estate are visible to people driving past the Interstate 405 interchange at Portland’s Southwest Broadway. A Victorian-era mansion, which cost four times the average home when constructed in 1880, was sold for a buck, cut in half and moved to a triangular traffic island two years ago to save it from being demolished.

For a century, the once-regal, downtown residence with ornate arches, bay windows and balconies was a rooming house until it was boarded up in the 1990s. Squatters lived inside, but much of the interior’s almost irreplaceable woodwork was left intact.

Longtime owners had applied for a demolition permit but a plan to stop the wreaking ball was negotiated instead.

To the rescue were preservation developer Rick Michaelson, who is a board member of the Architectural Heritage Center, and Portland development consultant Karen Karlsson. Both have been involved in other successful efforts to stop historic buildings from being torn down.

Conditions beyond the $1 purchase price included devising a plan, finding a vacant lot and funding about $440,000 for permits, preparing the land and hiring Oxbo Mega Transport Solutions to move two stripped-down, 84,000-pound sections in September 2017.

People traversing Southwest Broadway Drive as it wraps around to meet Southwest Grant Street now have 360 degree visibility of the structurally-sound building that was put back together on top a new foundation.

Preservationists have something else to cheer: Earlier this month, the 1880 Fried-Durkheimer House, known first as the Morris Marks residence, earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

A building, site and other property may qualify to be included on the National Register if it is at least 50 years old and is a rare example associated with an important event, design movement or noteworthy architect, builder or owner.

About 2,000 Oregon civic, commercial and residential properties have been included on the National Register and more are added each year.

The benefits: Local or state clauses could prevent a structure on the register from being altered or destroyed and certain building code requirements are waived in the interest of preserving historic integrity.

There are also some tax incentives, at the state and federal levels. The State Historic Preservation Office administers a federal tax credit program for commercial, industrial or rental residential buildings as well as Preserving Oregon grants and a program in which the property is specially assessed for 10 years.

The Fried-Durkheimer House is the latest of more than 600 individual properties in Portland listed on the National Register, which is maintained by the National Park Service.

The Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation recommended the two-story dwelling, with a curved staircase and marble fireplace surround, be included since it is one of Portland’s few remaining Italianate Town Houses, a style popular in the emerging downtown area in the 1860s through the 1890s.

This victory is not to be confused with the larger, 1882 Morris Marks house, on Southwest Harrison Street, which sold for $1.5 million in September 2019 and was added to the National Register in 1975.

It, too, was a gilded Italianate mansion that Marks, a wealthy shoe merchant from Poland, had built for his family when Portland was young.

The second, larger house also met the same fate. In 1910, it was sliced in half and hauled by horses a half mile from its original site to Goose Hollow to be used as apartments.

Some believe the two houses, which have similar features, were based on designs by architect Warren Heywood Williams. Others question this attribution.

Over the decades, the 1882 mansion has been brought back to its glory, first by preservationist Eric Ladd and respected landscape architect Wallace Kay Huntington, and, starting in 1997, by Leonard Gionet and Yvonne Meekcoms.

Here, original owner Morris Marks lived under gold-leaf ceilings and frescoes with paintings of his face.

Two years before the larger mansion was erected, Marks and his wife, Annie, lived in the townhouse at 1134 S.W. 12th Ave., near tony Park Blocks mansions and an easy carriage ride to Washington Park.

The Marks sold the property to the Fried-Durkheimer family, who retained ownership through the generations from 1882 until 1901.

Going forward, although the floor plan remained the same, the single-family residence was used as apartments.

In 1911, the 11-room boarding house and its furniture were listed for sale at $500.

Squeeze out by newer buildings in its original location, the Fried-Durkheimer House was moved in two pieces approximately five blocks east and 12 blocks south in September 2017, where it remains, awaiting a restoration and remodel.

Arciform, the design firm managing the renovation project, plans to preserve much of the original materials as the structure transforms into a commercial and residential space.

--Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

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