An interesting blast from the past. Locating Lila J Colwell’s home…

After returning from Portland, I received a phone call from a gentleman who explained that as a young lad he was taken under the protective wing of Lila Colwell a prominent Interior decorator based in Portland and had a beach home in Surf Pines. Steve was just 18 when he first came to Surf Pines with Lila and her family in the early 70s. Now 73 he was trying to capture his past. So he called Debbie Eddie our Administrator to see if Lila’s home was still in Surf Pines. Debbie referred Steve to me, since I have been collecting much of the history of SPA and the Clatsop Plains. After over 50 years his memory was a bit stretched but after talking to him for a while I was able to get enough information to identify the home located at the far south end of Ocean Drive.

Below was my response to him. Since this is so much a part of our past I figured I would share this with the community. Hopefully some of the old timers in SPA might remember Lila and fill in more details for a future post about the history of Surf Pines…

It was a pleasure speaking with you today. I really enjoyed your trip to the past for your old mentor Lila Colwell. I really enjoy trying to figure out where her house was. I actually was able to locate Lila Colwell’s home. I found a survey with her name on it it dated November 25, 1961. So that must have been when she bought the place.It is part of the original first 24 lots of Surf Pines called the Surf Pines Beach Addition. She actually placed her home on lot 6 and half of lot 5 so she probably could increase the footprint of her home. From the improvements it looks like the house has had several additions added since it was first built in 1955. 

Here is the Link to the house that Lila used to own now owned by Matt and Katherine Riley at 89048 Ocean Drive  formerly 2020 Ocean Drive when Lila lived there. As you can see from the picture there is lots of glass. I did not think of it because it is actually south of where the road drops to meet Ocean so I do not see the front of it often when I am walking. 

Here is a map of Surfpines around the early 70’s. You can see Lila’s home at the far south end of Ocean. It was built in 1955 so it is one of the first 10 homes built in Surf Pines Map Mid seventies SP from Manio

As promised, here is the first article that our President wrote about how things have changed in Surf Pines. It was published in the January edition of our newsletter. John’s dad bought their house on Manion in the early 70’s and may well have known Lila, since John would have been in college in the early 70’s or a couple years behind you in age. The next article came from one of our members whose family bought the house about four down from Lila’s in 1968. Joe was 9 when his parents bought the home. Link to article. It is possible that Joe might remember Lila because he would have been 13 in 1973. This article explains the growth of the beach in the last 50 years. 

Lastly here is a link to the Clatsop Plains Chronicles Part 1 Early Surf Pines. This is a thirty minute video I produced for the 50th anniversary of the Surf Pines Association. I think you will be very interested in the part about when Barney Lucas sold his home to Ralph Williams his banker. His home would have been about four houses north of Lila’s and was a cause of all the owners of those lots to have to buy back their ocean front property because the beach grew so far. 

Let me know if this helps and if you are in the area I would love to go down memory lane with you and Surf Pines. I also would love to get more information on Lila to maybe use in an article in our local historical quarterly publication by our Clatsop County Historical Society. 

Rest of the story…

Here was Steve’s response with even more information on Lila Colwell.

That looks like the house…it didn’t have the square shingle second floor at the time…it had some metal or steel beams with windows. Undoubtedly, it is it.

Interesting how things change. That is life. Maybe, if you or Debbie are around, when I come through this summer, I might be able to just look at it?! We will see. Don’t want to be a bother.

Lila’s house at 2338 SW Madison had quite a history, too. We were robbed one night, bound and gagged and the robbers blew up her downstairs safe that was built into the floor. I was always a little scared after that incident. The house at Surf Pines had lots of media attention and parties. It seemed like she was always getting mentioned in the Society pages. Lila used to wear a wig. I drove her big silver Buick convertible at the time. She would love to take her wig off in traffic. She thought it was hilarious. Not that it makes much sense now. Surf Pines was kind of an antique dealers…interior decorator mecca. We used to go house to house to see who could out-do another. Thank you for the walk down memory lane and a brief glimpse of Surf Pines history. Dr. Steve I was going to be an artist/writer and ended up becoming a psychiatrist!