After the Bayocean School (now the Cape Meares Community Center), the Pagoda House is the most famous of the buildings moved from Bayocean to Cape Meares before a 1952 winter storm inflicted final destruction on the once-thriving resort town.
They were two separate houses on Bayocean, on the east side of Clarke Street, joined by a hallway because the residents were close friends. One of them had been moved from a previous location on the west side as the dune approached. The photo below was taken at the original location, with the front door facing east, away from the force of winter storms.
Harold Bennett recalls his mother cleaning house for the Miss Cake and Miss Brownell, ladies who lived in the second Pagoda full time in the mid-1940s. Harold's brother James did yard work and split wood for them, according to his widow Barbara.
Milton and Jerry Schlegel (Barbara's father and brother), and Woodrow (Woody) Chase, a logger from Willamina, moved the Pagoda houses, and others, to the mainland as erosion threatened them at the new location. They used a tractor to push and pull the truck through bad spots like the gaps. The Tillamook Headlight Herald of April 7, 1949, announced the start of the process.
During that summer, Milton and Jerry excavated property purchased on Pacific Avenue in Oceanside, built a basement, and fit the two houses together on top of it. On August 11 the Tillamook Headlight Herald described a larger housewarming by Bob and Barbara Watkins that celebrated its completion. Mike Watkins was a young boy then, but he recalls a dumbwaiter that came with the house which his father wouldn't let them use to lift wood from the basement. His father had them remove the fancy rafter end trim because it was too fancy. As can be seen in the photos, the house originally had clapboard siding. Shingles were added before being moved and maintained for decades. More recent owners removed the shingles and went back to the original siding. Mike still owns a beach house next door.
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| A recent photo by the author of the Pagoda House in Cape Meares (address withheld to protect the privacy of residents) |
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| Photo from Oregon Historical Society photo collection 93-B. |
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| Photo by Howard "Buck" Sherwood of Pagoda Houses being prepared for the move from Cape Meares Community Center scrapbo |
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| Photo by Buck Sherwood, courtesy of Mike Watkins, who lived in the Pagoda house(s) on Cape Meares |
Milton and Jerry Schlegel (Barbara's father and brother), and Woodrow (Woody) Chase, a logger from Willamina, moved the Pagoda houses, and others, to the mainland as erosion threatened them at the new location. They used a tractor to push and pull the truck through bad spots like the gaps. The Tillamook Headlight Herald of April 7, 1949, announced the start of the process.
During that summer, Milton and Jerry excavated property purchased on Pacific Avenue in Oceanside, built a basement, and fit the two houses together on top of it. On August 11 the Tillamook Headlight Herald described a larger housewarming by Bob and Barbara Watkins that celebrated its completion. Mike Watkins was a young boy then, but he recalls a dumbwaiter that came with the house which his father wouldn't let them use to lift wood from the basement. His father had them remove the fancy rafter end trim because it was too fancy. As can be seen in the photos, the house originally had clapboard siding. Shingles were added before being moved and maintained for decades. More recent owners removed the shingles and went back to the original siding. Mike still owns a beach house next door.