|
laurelhurst
Driving east on East Burnside Street you may
be surprised to see the stone archways at Southeast 33rd Avenue with the
name “Laurelhurst” carved into the stone pillar. Many years ago this was
the home of many of Portland’s more affluent families. To augment their
living style, city officials created Laurelhurst Park, formerly part of
the William Ladd estate. Ladd was one of Portland’s early settlers. The
Laurelhurst subdivision was platted in 1909 after the land was sold to the
Laurelhurst Company. The new subdivision was christened using the same
name used by the developers in a residential area in Seattle. “Hurst” is
an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “ a wood or grove”, and “laurel” seems to
have been chosen because of the shrubs growing in the vicinity of
Seattle’s Laurelhurst, which is on a peninsula between Lake Washington and
Lake Union. To this day the park, which was designed by the same leading
New York firm which put together Central Park, has a quiet dignity. There
are gardens, wooded glens, and even a small lake. The lake is a habitat
for mallards, geese, and swans.
|
