Operating a horse ranch is an inherently messy business given the volume of dirt, dust, dander and manure flying around on any given day. And lifelong horsewoman Sarah Resor, owner of Silver Horse Ranch in Bend, doesn't mind all that. But she does mind breathing in the toxic fumes floating around at most horse and cattle ranches.
Special to The Oregonian By Elisabeth Dunham
Operating a horse ranch is an inherently messy business given the volume of dirt, dust, dander and manure flying around on any given day. And lifelong horsewoman Sarah Resor, owner of Silver Horse Ranch in Bend, doesn't mind all that. But she does mind breathing in the toxic fumes floating around at most horse and cattle ranches.
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By Elisabeth Dunham for Oregon Home When home buyers talk about finding the house after a long search, they invariably get to the part where they describe something about the place that hooked them. It might be an inviting open floor plan or the way light shone through the windows or just a sense of coming home. But for Kevin Atchley there were no such moment. The way he tells it, he had only a sense of grim determination when he walked into the 1949 bunker-like ranch that would become his home. “I think I was exhausted and regretting the amount of financial investment I had put into the search for a house,” says Atchley, 40 “But wheels were in motion and I realized ‘Well here I am and I’m going to have to make the best of it.” Four years later, with a lot of help from his partner, Laleña Dolby, he’s done a lot more than that. One of many nearly identical homes built for returning World War II veterans in the Cully neighborhood near Northeast Fremont, the house has gone from bland to bold, with an interior that is rustic and modern, combining elements of natural with artwork that seems to tell stories of weekend road trips down dusty country roads. It’s a huge departure from what Atchley recalls seeing that first day. “The blandness was appealing only after I started cutting walls out. At first it was like ‘This place is so horrendous I don’t even want to invite people over.' It looked like it had been dipped in taupe.” Written by Elizabeth Dunham Cheryl Janis and Philip Morgan tried not to laugh every time their coastal construction crew made reference to their cutting-edge, eco-friendly modular residence. “It is a pre-fabricated home, but they would call it ‘the mobile home’ or ‘the trailer home,’” recalls Janis, an interior designer and feng shui consultant. “So we started doing that too. If we said, ‘Our pre-fab is on the way,’ they would just give us a blank stare.” The finished product, a beautifully constructed, energy-efficient home made by ideabox in Salem, is hardly the stuff of trailer parks. Nor is the location — pristine, creekside acreage in an old-growth forest near Pacific City. Elisabeth Dunham for Intel Corp. Did you know that batik, an Indonesian method of decorating fabrics practiced for centuries, was becoming a dying art? But now this ancient form of fabric art is being preserved and enhanced for future generations thanks to Intel-enabled mathematical software that is allowing a wider population of artisans to create their own designs. Batik artist Nancy Margried draws inspiration from the natural beauty and ancient architecture of her homeland. But unlike traditional batik artists, who draw their designs by hand before applying them to the surface of cloth using melted wax, Margried creates batik designs using 3D modeling software before they are transferred onto fabric using the same wax technique. Special to The Oregonian By Elisabeth Dunham It's become a popular daydream for fans of '50s-era design: You see an old travel trailer sitting forgotten in a field somewhere and wonder what it would be like to fix it up and have your own mobile vacation home. That's the dream, anyway. In reality, that vintage coach could turn into a money-sucking nightmare once you realize it needs to be gutted, stripped, rewired, rebuilt, re-skinned and repainted before it's ready to hit the road. Throw in new tires, propane, cabinetry, any number of hardware fixes and you might be thinking a motel sounds pretty good. Interview and story about Jack Andraka by Elisabeth Dunham for Intel Inspired by a family tragedy, 15-year-old Jack Andraka invented a new way of detecting pancreatic cancer. “I got into this work because my uncle died of pancreatic cancer,” says Andraka of Crownsville, Maryland. “I got interested in early diagnosis and focused on pancreatic cancer due to its extremely low survival rates. It’s really crucial to detect these diseases in their early stages when survival rates are their highest.” The high school freshman’s innovative technology—a non-invasive paper sensor that detects whether someone has pancreatic cancer—earned him the Gordon E. Moore Award, the top prize at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF). The sensor can also be used to detect other types of cancer and infectious diseases. Read the full story here:
http://www.intel.eu/content/www/eu/en/corporate-responsibility/foundation-gordon-e-moore-award.html Special to The Oregonian By Elisabeth Dunham If it hadn't been for her daughter's stubbornness, Mary DeMorest says, she might still be dragging herself through life sick, tired and cranky all the time. "Hopeless" is how she describes her state two years ago. After experiencing a long-term decline in her health and getting little help from conventional medicine, she was starting to feel as if she was beyond aid. Her daughter, however, had become a believer in juice fasting, which she had tried under the supervision of her naturopath, and she was insistent her mom at least talk to him. Special to The Oregonian By Elisabeth Dunham In a life marked by contradictions, perhaps it's fitting Laura Westerhuis met the great love of her life on her least favorite holiday. "I never liked Valentine's Day and always saw it as a commercial holiday," Westerhuis says. "But I guess I should like it now because that's the day I met Elm. I told my friend I never loved anything or anyone more than I love her." By Elisabeth Dunham In the still-cresting craze for midcentury modern architecture, Palm Springs guards its status as the movement’s unofficial holy ground, a place where cultural tourists pilgrimage to pay respects to the creations of hallowed architects such as E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, William Cody and Donald A. Wexler. And it so happens that few in the city’s priesthood of style hold more clout than a couple from Portland, Christy Eugenis and Stan Amy. Eight years ago Eugenis, a former owner of the Nanu clothing boutique, and Amy, a founder of the New Seasons Market grocery chain, bought a grungy ’50s motel in Sinatra’s old stomping grounds and turned it into a swank showpiece of midcentury restoration. By the time the Orbit In went on the market last year for $2.9 million, it had become a home base for travelers soaking up Palm Spring’s radiant design heritage and a symbol of the city’s resurgent fabulousness. But lately Eugenis and Amy, who retain a nine-room Palm Springs retreat called the Hideaway, have been spending their desert weekends pursing a more private preservation project: updating their new Palm Springs vacation home, a post-and-beam residence that the aforementioned Wexler designed for his own family in 1954. One of the founding fathers of the “desert modern” style that originated in Palm Springs, Wexler is best known for his expertise in prefabricated steel construction and public works. In addition to the prototype steel houses he drafted for U.S. Steel (developed by Palm Springs based Alexander Construction Co, the six that have been restored to original condition are mainstays of any architectural tour of the city), he designed Dinah Shore’s home, the Palm Springs International Airport and many other homes and public buildings in the city. This early residence, however, represented a different innovation. Designed while the architect’s wife, Lynn, was pregnant, Wexler’s “expandable” house incorporated non-load-bearing partitions that could be moved and supplemented to create new rooms with unusual ease. Written up in the Los Angeles Times Homes Magazine twice – the second time concurrent with additions made to accommodate the couple’s three sons, Glen, Gary and Brian – it gradually grew from 1,200 to 2,400 square feet. And Eugenis is pleased to note that despite its idiosyncratic construction, the home is elegantly of a piece, bearing the must-have hallmarks of the desert modern style – a low-pitched, almost flat roof; deep overhangs; huge glass windows; and of course an outdoor pool. “I love all of its lines,” she remarks. “There’s the linear quality of the plywood siding on the outside and on the inside, and the tongue-and-groove on the ceiling and where the beams come across to the clerestory windows. It makes the house feel floaty and airy. You just keep discovering these new angles.” The backyard pool, chicly outfitted with a long, shallow shelf where adults can lounge and loll as young children play, was featured in the 2003 coffee table book More Spectacular Pools by Marina Ubach. Recently Wexler, now 80, made a final addition at the request of the new, Portland-based owners: a bike garage. But other than that and “about a hundred little repairs,” Eugenis and Amy have kept the structure of their pedigreed residence intact. “You feel like you inhabit this wonderful piece of art,” Eugenis says. “But it’s simplistic and not real lavish or overdone. It’s more to a human scale.” The home’s new décor follows the same tone. Making use of the plethora of retro shops in Palm Springs, Eugenis and Amy added a mix of classic midcentury furniture (a Bertoia bird chair and ottoman in the den, for instance), contemporary pieces (a sculptural Italian sofa in the living room) and fun retro items (a ’50s-era manicure cart in a guest bedroom). Notwithstanding all that furniture shopping, Eugenis says one of the best things about owning the house has been getting to know its architect. “When we bought the house I called him up and had he and his wife over for cocktails,” she recalls. “Every time we have him over, we learn a little bit more.” Wexler, who lived in the house for 38 years and now consults on midcentury-style home designs in Palm Springs, says he’s just happy that his old abode has been kept up so well by subsequent owners. “To me, it’s a great pleasure to see it taken care of and looking as good as – or better than – when I lived in it.” Now, if only someone would make a bicycle with tail fins and chrome fenders to go in that new garage. |
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