Showing posts with label oregon tours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oregon tours. Show all posts

A Visit to Harry & David

December 17, 2011 David , factory tour 0 Comments

All my life I've driven up and down I-5. First it was family vacations when we would return from Saudi Arabia. We would often enter in Los Angeles and then do family activities as we drove back to Oregon to visit my aunt and cousin. Later I did the drive in the 80s when I would travel from college to Palm Springs for spring break. My years were the years that closed Palm Springs forever for spring breakers. Now I do the drive to visit my dad. He retired in Salem and so it's an 8 hour drive to and from. 

So it's pretty amazing that in all that time I never stopped in Medford to go to visit Harry & David. I must admit I've never really bought from Harry & David since it was always a bit on the pricey side for me and I live in the Sacramento valley where we have all the produce I could ever want. My tightwad ways. It was quite by accident that I stumbled on their headquarters this trip. I was stopping in Medford for lunch and drove right by their main store. 

Harry & David are brothers that took over their father's farm after his death in 1914. They took their agricultural expertise to expand the business with their famous Royal Riviera pears. The business took a hit, understandably, during the depression. It was some creative and inspired marketing that made the brothers venture into the mail order business. In 1934 they took boxes of their pears to influential businessmen in San Francisco and New York. The pears sold themselves and the mail order business was born. Since then the company has increased their product lines to include all sorts of fruits, chocolates, snacks, and baked goods. 

freshly dipped pears
There are factory tours offered several times each weekday. Since I was there on a Wednesday and not in a great hurry, I signed up for the 12:30 tour. The tours cost $5, but then they give you a coupon for $5 off your purchases later. I had already shopped and had used their Foursquare check-in coupon of 10% off.


The crunch time for Harry & David is from about mid September to the beginning of December. The factory is exploding with bustling business. I was mid December and the plant was pretty quiet. The last of the pears were being packaged and some gift baskets were being assembled.

cheesecake!
Here you see the variety of cheesecakes being split apart. They are assembling the variety packs with a quarter of each cheesecake packaged together.

Moose Munch mixer
Their biggest product is the Moose Munch. They have about 20 flavor variations. I like the dark chocolate with macadamia and coconut macaroon. The popcorn they use is of two varieties. I didn't realize that each variety pops differently. One pops in a mushroom shape and the other in a butterfly shape, which they like to hold more caramel.

I finished the tour and soon went on my way with a few purchases. I guess I'll be stopping in Medford more often now that I've discovered the treasure hidden slightly off the freeway.

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Frank Lloyd Wright's Gordon House

November 29, 2010 frank lloyd wright , gordon house 2 Comments
The Gordon House, Silverton, OR
Most people aren’t knowledgeable enough  to be able to rattle off famous architects. There is one name, though, that is somewhat familiar to all – Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact, in 1991 the American Institute of Architects named Wright as “the greatest American architect of all time.”

In Silverton, Oregon there is a Wright house that is open to the public. The Gordon House is located at the Oregon Gardens after having been saved and moved there in 2001. Originally finished in 1964 in Wilsonville, it was in danger of demolition when the property was sold in 2000. After a hurried rush of fundraising by preservationists, the house was disassembled and moved to Silverton.

The house is one of Wright’s last structures. He designed the house for the Gordons in 1957 and died shortly after signing over the final design to them. It is considered an example of Usonian architecture.

Usonian was based on the anagram for United States of North America (he added an ‘I’ for easier pronunciation). Wright had been known for many years designing very expensive Prairie style homes for those that could afford them. But he had a desire to build affordable, practical small homes for the middle-class. Some of the features that are in Usonian homes and in Gordon House include:
carport
  •  Concrete slab floors versus raised foundations. They included piping for hot water to create heated floors.
  • No basements or attics.
  • Flat, cantilevered roofs.
  • Open floor plans and great rooms – a huge influence seen in today’s modern homes.
  • Based on building units, whether squares, hexagons, or other shapes. In the Gordon House the unit is 7 foot squares. You can see them gridded in the concrete floor and everything else is built off the units.
  • Carports were a Wright innovation as a cheaper alternative to enclosed garages. Again, a cost saving measure.
  • Lots of built-in cabinets and closets, means less need for storage furniture.
  • Use of horizontal lines to enlarge spaces (more on this later).
Wright was also famous for wanting to integrate nature into his structures, whether in the building materials or in the placement and structure of the house.  The Gordon House’s original location had it situated so that the Willamette River ran close and around it and the eastern side had spectacular view of Mt. Hood. There are tall French doors that open outward to encourage you to go outside. The placement of the upstairs windows make you a part of the tree canopy when you are lying in bed or sitting in the bathtub looking out. There are even windows so that you get a beautiful view from the toilet.  

great room showing fireplace, fretwork windows, and library alcove

Material-wise, the house uses a lot stained wood and concrete. The wood fretwork windows were intended to be a cheaper decorative window style versus the stained glass windows used in many of his Prairie style designs.
great room opposite direction. note low ceiling over entryway, 7' square grid in floor, and fretwork

Wright used architecture to influence human behavior as well. He wanted people to go out and experience nature and to socialize with others.  He did this by using a method called ‘compression’. Apparently any entrance way in a Wright house is made in such a way as to force the person to decide to go out or come in and not dawdle in the foyer. In this example, the roof is low at only 6’6” and the space is narrow. It forces you to want to continue into the open great room which is 1.5 stories tall with floor to ceiling windows. In the same way, the bedrooms are kept small and a bit claustrophobic so as to make a person want to get out and join everyone outside. 

kitchen or 'work space'

The same is true for the kitchen, or, as Wright called it, the ‘work space’. Although small in square footage, there is plenty of storage and counter space to make it easy to work in. Again, he wanted people out in the great room versus in the kitchen or bedrooms.

His designs were very exact and did use a lot of horizontal lines to create a sense of width and space. For instance, the concrete blocks were put in place and the masons were told to fill the vertical lines so that your eyes only saw the horizontal grout lines. Everything is exactly placed to continue the horizontal line. You could follow the concrete grout line over and see that it would perfectly line up with the horizontal wood paneling line, then continue on to the horizontal edge of the fretwork, then to the shelving, and even to the placement of the hardware on the cabinetry. This continuous horizontal line forces your eye to keep moving along it to create the sense of space.

I really enjoyed the tour and learned a lot about Wright's style and influence. I look forward to any chances in the future to see some of his other houses that are open to the public.


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