A new Living Social promotion on the horizon has me going back and looking at reviews, many of which I’ve not seen; I’m amazed at the generosity of my guests.  They seem to get something from this house that stays with them and I am so grateful to be a part of that.

Stirred to stillness by a sense of awe and gratitude, I take the time to look at the softly stunning portrait of MaMere (my grandmother) in the parlor and I realize that the house is a lot like this image:  colorful, unique, classic, and with a twinkle in her eye that invites you to look a little closer and find the laughter within.  She greets each visitor with a warm welcome as they cross the threshold and bids them safe and happy journey as they make their way out.

Rain dots the panes.  Winds assail the old, steady casings. No matter what comes, MaMere’s, true to her name, remains warm and cozy and inviting, a very safe harbor in the storm. My hope is always that our guests feel at home and able to truly rest.

The world is assaulted this winter with blusters and slides, water and ice, mist and darkness.  But, the light is on here so you can find us, me and MaMere. We hope that you come and find a warm spot to call your own for just a bit.  We hope that you come and find respite and enjoyment.  We hope that you come and find yourself.

The Fourth of July Festival is starting on July 1st and going to end with a Bang on the 4th.  There will be lots of kids activities and vendors and FAB music in the park right across the street from MaMere’s.

We are beginning renovation on the Carriage House and hope to have it completed around that time so you all can come and see what it’s turned into!

Music in the Park is so much fun and MaMere’s is holding many guests for those easy-breezy summer nights with music, the beer garden and food plus lots of good fun.

Remember, if you’ve been a guest and you’re in town for any of this, drop on in and say “hey” and hang out in the gazebo for a while.

Cynthia Lopez is not only the epitome of a professional, she is sincere and funny and smart. This short video that she made for MaMere’s is just a tiny example of what a woman can do with a camera! She honors me in this beautiful tribute to this house that so many have come to love.

You can see more of Cynthia’s shorts on her YouTube page.

If you’re sitting on the couch in the parlor room of MaMere’s, you’ve already noticed the wallpaper of the central hallway, the parlor and the dining room. The William Morris reproduction wallpaper in these rooms came from Bradbury & Bradbury of San Francisco.

William Morris, in short,  was an English textile designer, artist, writer, poet and socialist associated with the English Arts and Crafts Movement. In America, the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who was born during Morris’ lifetime, gained renown for bringing the elements and lines of nature inside as well.

Sitting on the couch, you’ll see the portrait of a young Berthe’ Adele Aimont (Memere) on the wall facing you. Her youngest daughter, Kate, was charcoal portrait artist at Jackson Square in the New Orleans French Quarter for 40 years until the airlift during the aftermath of Katrina ended her life as she knew it. Aunt Kate did this pastel of her mother from an old black and white portrait taken after her wedding.

Adjacent to this portrait, hangs a picture of Berthe’ as a student in the Ursuline Convent. The convent dates from 1752 and is the only remaining building from the French colonial period in the United States. It was a rare survival of the disastrous 18th-century fires that destroyed the rest of the French Quarter. It now serves as the archive and museum for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and houses documents as old as 1718.

To your right hangs a black and white photo of the bend in the Mississippi River that gives New Orleans its “Crescent City” moniker. This scene is still much the same as it was when the picture was taken in 1945, the year WWII ended. Memere’s youngest son, Lucien (my daddy) was stationed in Okinawa where he piloted POW transport boats from the outer islands. When the war ended, Lucien packed up his belongings and headed back to his mother’s rooming house at 1418 Bourbon Street. The photos on the ancient Chinese desk are the two young daughters of the Okinawan woman who did laundry for the occupying G.I.’s. The beautiful silk doll was made for him by the oldest, Miyako. They were in Japan visiting her grandparents when war broke out and so were stranded there.

The smaller black and white photo was taken the year before the Great Depression in 1928 and depicts Canal Street in its heyday. Surprisingly enough, except for the make and model of the automobiles, Canal Street looks much the same even today.

By 1928, Berthe’ (Memere) had long since left her job at Maison Blanche on Canal Street but the building in which she worked, and met her husband in, is still there. The original Maison Blanche was demolished and rebuilt in 1908-09. It stands today as part of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. After Hurricane Katrina, the Ritz-Carlton reopened on December 4, 2006 to the tune of a $106 million refurbishment.

The framed poster print is of Ignatius of Loyola. The original is an 8’ x 10’ oil on canvas which hangs in Jesuit High School on Baronne Street (In 1911, the high school and college divisions of the College of Immaculate Conception, founded in 1847, were split and the college division relocated to St. Charles Avenue, eventually becoming Loyola University). The stunning original, used in 1991 to commemorate the 5ooth year of Ignatius, was painted by acclaimed New Orleans artist Oscar “Bill” Rabensteiner (class of 1936) when he was just 18 years old. He was a childhood friend of Memere’s children and later married her oldest daughter, my Aunt Coco.

The quartet of pen and inks depict the various architectural styles and scenes that have been a part of the fabric of New Orleans for centuries. It is my sincere hope that during your stay here at MaMere’s, you will experience a bit of the hospitality, ease and timeless beauty of that city which will always be home to me.

The Howell House was built in 1891 by Mr. Howell so his daughter, Susan, could attend the Oregon Normal School (now Western Oregon University). Women could actually attend the ONS because it was a teacher training school. Kudos to Mr. Howell!

After Susan obtained her teaching degree, she took in student boarders which makes the Howell House the oldest student housing in Oregon. Through the years, the house went through several owners but remained a rooming house until 1984 when it was officially condemned after its final years of lots of use and little care.

In 1987, Clint and Sandy Boylan bought the house for $25,000. With a commitment to stylistic integrity and a vision for beauty, the Boylans cannibalized another house built by Mr. Howell which had been built for Mr. Riddell on what is now Riddell Road at the North Gates of WOU. If you’re on Riddell Road in the Spring, you can see that it is lined on the west side by a bevy of beautiful Irises which Mr. Riddell planted decades ago just for your enjoyment.

The original wood from both houses was used to painstakingly reconstruct the Howell House to its original grandeur. The Boylans added flourishes such as the beautifully designed and placed wallpaper in the parlor, dining room and central hallway.

For 12 years the Boylans ran a successful Victorian Style Bed and Breakfast complete with fluttery lace curtains, vintage cars and parlor piano concerts. They sold the house to Cary Madden who added further vision and flourishes as well as her charming personality and culinary artistry. In 2005, Cary went on to pursue her career as a pastry chef and the house stood sadly vacant for two years.

While completing my Master’s degree at WOU in the early 90’s, I often admired the Howell House as I drove through town from Salem.  The trimmed corner lot and the serenity of style that beckoned to a quieter time was very appealing to a full-time student and mother of six. Monmouth has many beautiful old homes but this one is right out here in the middle of everything so it has the opportunity to get properly noticed.

Surprisingly, in 2007 I had the opportunity to buy the Howell House, all mustard-colored with brown trim, chipped and weathered and looking like it needed a lift of spirits throughout (sorta like me at the time). Right away, with a crew of singing painters, an expert wood restorer, an ebullient contractor, a long-suffering building inspector, a progressive city planner, a boisterous crew of non-English speaking roofers, and a truly magical muralist, the visions I awoke with daily began to materialize.

In the beginning of this adventure, now called MaMere’s Bed and Breakfast, my trendy collegiate sons wondered why I’d bought “an old haunted house,” or any house for that matter without surround sound. But, eventually, after months of working on certain aspects of the redesign and catching the vision for what the house would become, they stood back with awe and pride, just like the rest of us.

I look forward to sharing the house with all who enter. Her rich history and the care she’s gotten in recent decades have restored her to a place of warmth and comfort and healing. Y’all come!

Oregon has a bit of a reputation for the winter doldrums as the rain rolls in and on and on and on AND on.  However, here at MaMere’s the atmosphere is cozy and languid and as quiet as you want it to be.  The house is busier this January than she’s ever been and happy to be serving so many trekkers who visit her for so many different reasons.

We have couples who come to work on their relationships.  We have mothers and daughters who want to be just with each other for a day or two of catching up.  We have professors coming to lecture, confer, or interview.  We have writers who inhabit the holy space of the the third floor and leave it used and sacred, musicians who practice and compose.  Sale reps who just “happen” to drive near and are magnetically attracted (although the GPS helps) to stay the night and find a surprising respite.

I am always so proud of those who are intentional about breaking away from the norm, the beautiful routine of their lives, in order to give themselves a  night or two of regeneration here at MaMere’s.  They tell me that they leave healed and therefore head back into a better life than the one they left.  Breaking away seems to be the hard part but once they’re here, they breathe and remember why they come back again and again.

We’re here this winter, pulsing warmth and light, music, food that tastes like sunshine, and good, strong coffee.  You’ll find us through the mist.  You’ll feel as if you’ve come home.

Whoa! It’s like a heat wave in Oregon! MaMere’s feels more like New Orleans than ever yet she’s surrounded by the beauty and breezes of the NorthWest. Surreal for a Southerner used to melting like a puddle in the heat. I’m loving it!

If you’re in town for the festivities of the Fourth of July, please drop by and say “hey.” MaMere’s is hosting a gathering of friends and family and if you’re reading this, you can consider yourself in either category (although you may want to suspend your decision until you’ve actually seen the makings of both).

This week kicks off events in Monmouth that keep us “cool” all summer long with our Music in the Park on Wednesdays:
July 7 Rock Hounds
July 15 Hot Rod Lincoln
July 22 Guthrie Park
July 29 Joe Stoddard
August 5 Country Jones Band
August 12 Darby O’Gill
August 19 Bill Larimere Trio

Also, CylceOregon will be rolling through town July 17-19. And the indomitable Mel Brown will hold his annual Jazz in the Park concert on August 2.

Think about cooling off here in Monmouth this summer. At MaMere’s you can sleep under the stars or beneath a shower of Mardi Gras beads. Wile away the hours in the cool of the gazebo. Sample our local wines or sip iced tea like it’s supposed to be. Read a book from our library as you lie in one of the clawfoot tubs, soaking away the heat of the day. Wake up to the smell of breakfast being cooked just for you. Wander down in your robe to a hot cup of strong coffee and the sunshiny smile of Kary, hailed by all our guests as a marvel with the pots.

Take a break, grab a mini-vacation, at least one day this summer to do absolutely what you feel like doing which could be nothing at all. That’s what it’s like here at MaMere’s, the “Little Easy” of the West.

It was my last day in New Orleans before heading to the North Shore of Lake Ponchartrain to say goodbye to my mom and sisters. On my way out of the French Quarter I opened the windows driving slowly and intentionally down the narrow streets, taking in the indescribable smells at each new corner: braised beef, boiled crawfish, fried oysters. A soft, steady breeze pushed wisps of white through the azure sky. And I do mean azure; the sunlight was of the bright and happy sort, not intense and mean like in the summers.

I was wistful as I drove to my cousin Michael’s house near the fairgrounds where he and his neighbors are taking their homes to the full potential with colors and flowers and the smell and sounds of life. Someone digging a garden, someone running a power saw, someone walking beside a serious tricycler to the corner store, yards being mowed to offer parking for the upcoming JazzFest.

Michael is the one who gave me the portrait of MaMere which hangs proudly in the front parlor of the Bed and Breakfast in Oregon that bears her name. A gesture for which I profusely thank him every chance I get. The picture was done in pastel charcoals from an old black and white portrait of a newly wed Berthe Adele Aimont Gouedy. A portrait that I spent hours staring at and coveting as a child. With all of the cousins and kin that MaMere produced, I never thought, never, in a million years that it would one day be mine. Michael gave it to me after his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent lapse into dementia. He said I should have it because, of all our cousins, I look the most like MaMere.

The picture was done by my Aunt Kate, mother to Michael and his older brother Patrick (and MaMere’s youngest daughter). I guess their names are a tip of the hat to the Gouedy (nee O’Gouedy) that comes down through us thanks to MaMere falling for a young Irish salesman during her determined stint as a clerk at Maison Blanche on Canal Street.

Aunt Kate once told me that she had gotten through her hot-flashy stage and beyond by doing charcoal portraits at Jackson Square. She told me she had to get out of the house. She remembered her mother, MaMere, telling her that throughout her own “change” she had felt like a closet full of wire hangers. So, Aunt Kate took a cue and preemptively took her own talents out of the closet and onto St. Ann Street. And for the next forty years, until Hurrican Katrina, you could see her there where she stopped every day at 4:00 for her Happy Hour: two aspirins and a Dixie beer.

At present I am happily “way down yonder in New Orleans, in the land of those dreamy dreams” and boy is it dreamy!  Fluffy little white clouds breeze through the blue sky and smile down on us in the form of temperatures in the low 70’s.  An occassional rain shower “forces” me to my sister’s tin roofed porch where I cross my feet over the rail and languidly rock to the symphony of quarter-sized drops while the humidity offers me a free facial.

The French Quarter is full of smiling faces and savory smells while all over the city the parades are rolling by in increasing numbers.  I visited the Rouquette Mansion on Royal Street, MaMere’s maternal family home, and saw the original beams where her uncles hung wine barrels from the ceilings.  For those of you who have been to MaMere’s in Monmouth, you’ll remember the pictures of Dominique and Adrien Rouquette in the third floor Louisiana Lair.  These two along with their brothers Felix and Terrence (thus Terri :)), when they were home from their schooling in France, wrote poetry, hunted, fished and roamed the bayous and woods of St.Tammany Parish where I’ll be on Sunday unearthing more details and pictures to bring home to Monmouth in dedication to them.