Once the Morrison Bridge opened in 1887 and the streetcar started making its way up Belmont toward Mount Tabor the following year, developers started advertising the new Sunnyside community on the east side of the river. Before that, getting from downtown to that area could be a whole day's outing, involving crossing the river by ferry. Advertisements hyped the east-side location as “outside the shadow of the West Hills and downtown Portland” and on the “sunny side of the city.” Soon, the commercial district between 33rd and 35th on Belmont became a neighborhood center, then called Laburnum, with its own post office, block of shops, and, by 1915, a dairy.

Today, that block still retains much of its historic character, despite the loss of one 1889 building in 2017 to a developer called Get R Done LLC. (A more thoughtful example of adaptive reuse sits across the street, at the former Belmont Dairy turned apartments and grocer, currently the home of H Mart.) Many of Sunnyside’s older houses have survived too, with some of the late-19th-century Victorians ranking among the oldest in Portland, like the John and Sarah Sheffield House at 43rd and Washington, built in 1866.

Fast-forward to the ’60s and ’70s, when freeways, malls, civic centers, and so-called urban renewal boomed in Portland. Too many old houses were torn down, not to mention whole neighborhoods displaced. Jerry Bosco and Ben Milligan were a preservation-minded couple known for their love of architectural salvage and Victorians, and their work led to the later creation of the Architectural Heritage Center. They bought their first Victorian together in 1965 at 913 SE 33rd Ave, known as the Thaddeus Fisher House, built in 1892. They went on to start a business called Victorian Facades, and bought the house next door fronting Belmont for $5,000 in 1968. The 1893 home had been converted into a duplex, with commercial space in the bottom and an upstairs apartment, which was damaged in a fire.

Twenty years later, Jennifer Adams bought the building from the couple’s estate and opened the Pied Cow Coffeehouse in 1991. Bagels and floor pillows morphed into to a quirky hookah lounge that spanned the colorful wallpapered main floor and adjacent yard strung with twinkling lights, serving loyal customers for 30 years. 

In August, Adams put the home on the market for $1.5 million. Much of the 1893 exterior remains, from the square turret with pyramidal roof and its inset porch—an excellent spot for people-watching, says Adams—to the decorative detail. There’s spindlework, holding up the front porch and tucked into gables, dentil friezes, patterned shingles, lacy spandrels, even some fancy cast-iron scrollwork called cresting on the very top of the tower roof.

Inside, the main floor still has many of its original attributes, like the wood floors, interior window and door trim, wood wainscot, and stained glass. More recent additions also remain, like the spot where Adams installed a “shrine” in the alcove where the old stairs to the upper level had been enclosed to separate the floors. The upstairs apartment is accessed by an exterior stairway, with claw-foot tub in the bathroom and built-in bookshelves lining the tower room.

Of course, questions abound with such a storied listing. What next for the building? And the neighborhood? To that end, a recently reported a possible clue of future owners' plans: a new business filing for the address, a restaurant called Fox Trot. Our eyes are peeled for details. 

Listing Fast Facts 

• Address: 3240-3244 SE Belmont St, Portland, OR 97214
• Size: 3,166 square feet, mixed-use retail café and apartment
• List Date: 8/25/2023 
• List Price: $1,500,000
• Listing Agent: Dana Solof, Think Commercial

Melissa Dalton is a freelance writer who has focused on Pacific Northwest design and lifestyle since 2008. She is based in Portland, Oregon. Contact Dalton here. 

Editor’s Note: Portland Monthly’s “Property Watch” column takes a weekly look at an interesting home in Portland’s real estate market (with periodic ventures to the burbs and points beyond, for good measure). Got a home you think would work for this column? Get in touch at [email protected].