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This 32-foot-tall martini glass shone from a home in Portland's Southwest Hills for nearly 40 years until it went dark in 2012. It will be lit again in 2015, with a special Fourth of July debut.

(Motoya Nakamura / The Oregonian / 2007)

The 32-foot-tall martini glass that has shone forth from a West Hills home, a cherished Portland tradition for nearly 40 years, won't be displayed this holiday season. But it will be lit again starting next year, its new owner says.

Architect Aaron Hall, owner of home that long displayed the giant lighted cocktail, explains that a full tear-down of the 1960s-era home he bought caused the entire house and its famous holiday decoration to go dark in late 2012. As happens with so many home remodeling projects, the reconstruction of a larger, ultramodern home on the original house's footprint has taken a lot longer to complete than Hall expected.

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Construction is now in the finishing stages, but the house does not yet have a completed deck from which the martini glass will be displayed, Hall says.

He expects to begin moving into the house next month. He will remake the rickety, 40-year-old frame of the martini glass and its signature olive into a new frame that can be dismantled and taken down after New Years each year. He will replace its corroding Christmas lights with LEDs, he says.

Hall, who grew up in West Linn but moved to the East Coast for college and his early career, has lived in Portland for the past 13 years. He says, "I get it. I definitely get it" about Portland-area residents' strong attachment to the giant lighted cocktail. He says someone asks him nearly every day when he will resurrect it.

For those Portlanders who don't think they can go a full year without seeing the giant martini glass again, Hall has good news.

He plans to light it for the Fourth of July.

-- Betsy Hammond