Lake View Villas Expansion, Palisades’ and Blue Heron’s Beginnings
Helen Smith recalled, “We used to get in a boat and go up Blue Heron Creek and take a lunch. The spring that’s running into the creek is still there, just like it was when we were there, and it’s still fifty-two degrees the year ‘round.” It took an extensive advertising campaign to convince potential buyers that the area wasn’t just for summer picnics. Over a fifteen-year span their first development, Lake View Villas, grew to encompass the entire west end of the lake. The sixth Lake View Villas plat, centered on Greenbriar Road, is considered the beginning of the Palisades neighborhood. Homes on the east side of this street are currently in Palisades and those on the west side are in the Blue Heron neighborhood.
Gradually summer cottages on the lake were converted to accommodate year-around living. The house on Greenbriar Road owned by Christian Kisky, a local dentist, and his wife Dorothy was originally a one-room fishing cottage to which bedrooms were added in 1930s and the kitchen was enlarged in 1940s. The Kisky’s brick bathhouse design was inspired by the 1932 Walt Disney cartoon “The Three Little Pigs” and was hence dubbed the “Pig House.” For one memorable party in the 1930s Walt Disney supplied the wolf and pig costumes as well as original cartoon drawings for the bathhouse walls. In 1955 the Kisky home was featured on NBC’s “The Home Show.” The television crew spent six weeks on-site preparing for the live broadcast hosted by Arlene Francis and Hugh Downs. The Kisky’s daughter, Karen, was a member of the Oswego Water-Ski Club. Martha Dent Schollander, her high school swim coach, was a stunt swimmer in Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Schollander’s son, Donald, won four gold medals and set three world records in swimming events at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
A Roscoe Hemenway-designed Norman Farmhouse style home was built on Greenbriar Road in 1931 for George and Martha Lindahl although it is known as the Clara and Samuel B. Weinstein House. This architectural style gained popularity between the Depression and World War II. The house, recognizable by its distinctive turret, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the City of Lake Oswego Landmark Designation List.
In 1938 it was reported, “A miniature Timberline Lodge is rising on the Oswego lake front!” The Oregon Rustic style dwelling was built in 1937 for Adolph G. and Erma Sieberts. Adolph, nicknamed “Ade,” was Oregon State University’s first basketball All American in 1916. Architect Richard Sundeleaf designed the home using natural materials to harmonize with the surrounding landscape. The house was demolished to make way for new construction.
Most of the present-day Palisades neighborhood was not developed until after World War II. The platting of Palisades Park in 1947 ushered in a wave of development.