Pelicans, feathers of joy, 1913 and a generous librarian

In 1913 the architect A.E. Doyle built a beach cottage in Manzanita, a lonely hamlet on the wild Oregon coast. He built it for Mary Isom, Portland’s head librarian. (Doyle finished Portland’s lovely new “crown jewel,” the Central Library, the same year.)

Among library staff Mary is informally considered our patron saint, the reason being that when she died in 1920, Mary willed her wonderful cottage to the library’s hardworking employees. She left it to us in perpetuity as a “rest home,” a refuge where we can put our weary feet up and cosset our papercut fingers. Now a nonprofit organization keeps the cottage in shape and runs a lottery 3 times a year to pick the lucky staff who get to rent it for a few days at a time, nearly 365 days a year.

The “cottage,” known as Spindrift, is actually a commodious, rustic building that sleeps something like 18. It has exposed beams in the style of a state park lodge, and dark log furniture polished from decades of comfortable use. In the past 8 years we’ve only been twice before: one freezing night in November when storms had knocked the electricity out up and down the coast, and once for a single night of Hanukkah in December. Never before for 3 whole nights in summer. [In the sand castle photo below, the cottage is the windowed house on the right.]

My dad was able to switch his plane tickets from Montana to Oregon so he joined us. It was Tuley’s first time at the coast and a more effervescent joy has rarely been seen. It was plenty brisk, as NW coastal “summers” can be, but it was gorgeous and revivifying.