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Welcome to our Port Orford
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| Port Orford is the oldest townsite on the Oregon Coast. Are you curious about what is going on here? Our Community Events are being posted on an excellent website maintained by the Port Orford Chamber of Commerce. If you are interested in learning about our local real estate then visit Neath the Wind Realty, Sixes River Land Company, All Oregon Real Estate, Campbell Realty, C.A. Smith Real Estate, and, Siskiyou Coast Realty. An excellent comprehensive directory of Oregon Coast real estate information is RealWorld Real Estate. For folks who are working their way through the practicalities of 'Retirement', here is a very comprehensive Retirement Planning and Services Information. website. Scroll all the way down and click on Resources. If you are considering retiring here, before you decide to buy anything, you might want to stay in one of Port Orford's many Vacation Rentals for at least a couple of weeks to see what it is like to live here. |
An unprecedented number of custom homes are currently under way in Port Orford, but only one of those 'Dream Homes' is as clearly visible as Gary Robertson's monolithic China Mountain House. You can review the history of this project and follow its progress, by visiting Gary's The Ongoing Construction Project.
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Owner-Builders are also finding Port Orford. Some truly adventurous folks even arrive with young children and then proceed as a family unit to get back to Nature by pioneering a homesite. You can learn more about what owner-builders face and the fun they are having, by visiting Dave & Amy's website.
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Port Orford has many wonderful natural settings available for couples looking for a beautiful and unique location for their wedding ceremony. Our nearby Cape Blanco Lighthouse has become one of those popular places. Contact Theresia Hewitt at Lighthousekeeper.com to make arrangements for your Cape Blanco Lighthouse Wedding. Note that open year round on the Internet is The Friends of Cape Blanco excellent online gift store - Lighthouse Gifts from the Cape. All proceeds support this non-profit organization. |
The geographic, social and economic isolation of our little community is tempered greatly by our local Internet access thanks to a bank of modems located in Evan & Valarie Kramer's Downtown Fun Zone. An Internet Service Provider based in Kansas has begun offering us Wireless Broadband Internet (see photo of installer to left) and I can report that reception is excellent for locations with a clear line of sight to the Downtown Fun Zone's rooftop antenna.
Valarie is a computer professional and former Port Orford school board member. Evan publishes the free weekly newspaper Port Orford Today!, back issues of which are downloadable. The Port Orford News. has been operating on a weekly basis for 46 years and is the official paper of record for northern Curry County. County-wide news has been covered for many years by both the weekly Gold Beach Curry County Reporter, and the Brookings Curry Coastal Pilot. For more local news coverage, check out Jay Stoler's Curry County's Interactive Newswave Blog.
You can learn about Elk River on this excellent website - Friends of Elk River. Two other logical sites to visit to learn even more about our area are the Port Orford Public Library's and the City of Port Orford's excellent websites.
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Cape Blanco Cranberries is located along the Southern Coast of Oregon, at its most westerly point. Due to the influence of the Pacific Ocean, we have a mild climate, one that allows growers to keep their berries on the vine much longer than other growing regions. Cranberry Fruit Trio consists of fully vine ripened Oregon cranberries, apples, oranges and sugar with absolutely nothing else. No preservatives of any kind are used. Here's an excellent collection of 57 Cranberry Recipes. |
Agates can be collected in many areas along the coast. Port Orford's Agate Beach and Bandon's Bullard Beach are two of the best on the Southern Oregon Coast. K. Meyer lives in Newport and has created an extensive Oregon Coast Agate & Fossil Collecting webpage |
Cedar Grove Farm is a family oriented organic farmstead of 115 mostly forested acres with several large gardens, herb beds, and small pasture areas. Owner Rick Hazard is currently able to provide fresh produce, goats milk, cheese, and eggs in a limited amount to the nearby Curry County community.
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Some of the most dramatically pleasing sights on the Oregon coast are visible from the trails at Port Orford Heads State Park. Here you can see the Pacific Ocean splashing against miles of southern Oregon coastline. Vistas extend north toward the Cape Blanco Lighthouse and south to Port Orford and Humbug Mountain, and beyond. |
In partnership with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, The Point Orford Heritage Society has established a Maritime Museum and Interpretive Center in the historic 1934 Coast Guard Life Saving Station. Similar projects have sucessfully saved our local Cape Blanco Lighthouse and Hughes House from years and years of decay and neglect.
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Port Orford is located on the Pacific Coast flyway and has a pretty little lagoon - Garrison 'Lake' - in the middle of it. Port Orford has lots of migrating birds dropping in. The birds' seasonal visits are a source of great pleasure for our community's Kalmiopsis Audubon Society.
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Taking full advantage of our temperate climate, another popular recreational passion involves the art of Gardening - in this instance, Barbara Pleasant's extensive website Information on Growing Coastal Tomatoes. |
Past activities have included: Fine Arts Emporium; Soft Shell Cafe; Junk Art Contest & Exhibit; Albacore Tuna Barbecue; Rotary Show & Shine Antique Auto Show; a Festival Strolling area; the Port Orford Lifeboat Station; a Six Mile Walk; various Restaurant Seafood Specials; and, Original Music performed at the Savoy Theatre. |
July 4th activities: Square Dances; Community Pancake Breakfast; Salmon Bar-B-Que; Sand Castle Contest; Pet Show; Fish Display; the Huge Jubilee Parade; Horseshoe Tournament; Survival Suit Contest; Fishbox Derby Race; 4H Horse Playday; Fishermen's' Dinghy Race, Breeches Buoy Contest, and ... AWESOME Fireworks!!
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Oregon Wreath is a 30 year old family tree farm specializing in premium evergreen foilage. Their signature product is Port Orford Cedar, a world renowned cedar with a delicate lacy texture and a unique pungent fragrance. |
"The Port Orford Overlook was once home to a wooden structure built to protect people from the wind and rain. The structure was demolished by popular demand but the concrete foundation remained. Along came local Port Orford artist Cheryl Morse. She volunteered to do a series of tile mosaics along the base of the foundation facing away from the Port. It's a beautiful piece of work with many scenes related to the sea from fish to porpoises to the lighthouse. Cheryl's husband Al Morse assisted with installation of the tile mosaics and grouting them, etc. What we have now is an overlook that doesn't block people's views of the Port. It is now a focal point for people to gather, take photos and admire the scenery as well as the tile mosaic scenes of the sea. The project was sponsored by the Oregon Arts Commission, Port Orford Arts Council, and Port Orford Parks Commission."
(Port Orford Today! - Evan Kramer 2006.09.07) |
Wild Winter Storms make for great beachcombing. Here is what NOAA reports our wind is doing out at the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, about 4 miles northwest of us. Look here for this month's Tide Information. |
Just past the "Wind Gusts" sign at the south end of town, this huge chiptruck was blown off Hwy 101 by a microburst during one of 2002's many Winter storms. There were no injuries. |
Tide-Pooling anyone ? Fortunately for those of us us who are new to tide-pooling, Sandy Grumm has put together an excellent website covering
Tide-Pooling on the Southern Oregon Coast. Sandy: "In the most simplistic terms, tide-pooling is the adventure of discovering a wide and wild assortment of intertidal (between tides) animals and plants in rocky coastal areas during a low-tide. Water is captured in crevices and holes as the tide goes out, creating large and small "aquariums." If you keep very still and look closely, you may spot some incredible critters in these unique habitats."
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The hobby and sport of flying Radio Controlled (R/C) Model Airplanes is becoming more popular year-round at Cape Blanco State Park. Model soaring is inherently friendly to the environment and considerate of nearby neighbors, it is both a quiet communion with nature, and one that provides a great outlet for creative and competitive desires. To see exactly what the wind is currently doing everywhere in Oregon, visit WindOnTheWater.com.
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Photographers love our
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Port Orford's Arts Council has an extensive website where one can learn about our local community of Fiber Artists, Glass Artists and Ceramists, Jewelry and Gem Artists, Musicians & Bands, Painters, Papermakers/Bookbinders, Photographers, Scrimshanders, Sculptors, Wood Artists, Writers. I have built a local Artisans Webpage to showcase the excellent examples of the quality of Arts & Crafts you can expect to find in and around Port Orford. For such a small town, our community has quite a few excellent Galleries/Studios/Other Venues.
Regarding 'Other Venues', Point B Studio is an extraordinary studio equipped with 42" plasma screens that showcases interactive exhibits created to "highlight artists who incorporate some aspect of the Internet in their work. These poets of a new generation must often master a number of disciplines to envison information and tell stories that span traditional and new media". |
In addition to the professionally trained artists who live/work here, we have many folk artists creating sophisticated wood carvings, wood turnings, and Grandfather Clocks from a beautiful local hardwood called Myrtlewood.
Myrtlewood is a slow growing broad-leafed evergreen with leaves that look like bay leaves, found primarily along the S.W. Oregon Coast. The grain of its wood is often intricately patterned in subtle colors that range from deep oranges and yellows to satiny grays. It is heavy and hard, about the same density as cherrywood, and can be sanded to a fine and silky finish. Because it is the ideal material for bowls, and a whole range of turned products, myrtlewood is the basis for a cottage industry that stretches along the 110 miles of coastline between Brookings & North Bend. Since it takes between 150 to 200 years for a myrtle to grow a trunk 16 inches in diameter, and even though the wood is usually cut in vertical slabs rather than across the trunk, it is difficult to get the large pieces necessary for big bowls and platters. Because of the rarity of the wood and the small scale of the businesses run by the artisans who work with it, myrtlewood is rarely sold outside of the Northwest.
To see myrtlewood - milled, carved, turned, sanded & polished in the Port Orford area (south to north): Rick Cook Gallery; and, the Wooden Nickel. North of town, look for A&T Myrtlewood on your right just past Pacific High School. Guests who appreciate old world craftsmanship/ingenuity and the pleasure of doing business directly with local Artisans are pleased to discover A&T Myrtlewood where Myrna and John Austin and Sandra and Loyd Todd specialize in creating one of a kind art objects including wildlife carvings, walking sticks, bowls, pine needle baskets, clocks, rifle stock blanks, plaques, cribbage boards, spoons and scoops. The Austins and Todds are two couples who have partnered in business for over 30 years and, "enjoy working with myrtlewood more than any other thing that we have done." They have won many awards with their carvings and art pieces and been featured in many articles. They operate their own sawmill and make their myriad of beautiful finished products from logs they mill on site. Each of the four adds their own unique artistic expertise & helps out where needed. In addition to Myrtlewood, they handle other woods that grow in this area such as Big Leaf Maple, Tanoak, Yew Wood (when available), Port Orford Cedar, Western Red Cedar, Redwood, Chinquepin, Cascara, Holly, Red Alder, and Black Walnut. They also sell lumber and unfinished pieces of wood and have gone out of their way to help our guests find an economical way to ship even lumber home!
In the 38 years Brenda & I have lived and worked in Port Orford, we have used our spare time to renovate one home and then design and build three more. During regular hours, I have worked as a carpenter and managed our (now sold) rental property while Brenda taught Elementary School. From the original Apple Plus on up to today's MacBooks, one of my hobbies has been to help others learn how to use & maintain their computers and find their way around on the Internet. I was the original Webmaster for the Oregon Bed and Breakfast Guild and continue to help a limited number of clients with their personal computing issues. Now that Brenda has retired, she is applying herself to learning even more about bead weaving, quilting, lauhala weaving, tatting, handspinning, chair caning, palm frond weaving, feather lei making, ribbon lei making, pine needle and horse hair basketry. Her current challenge is to learn wood carving.
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Price Range:
Winter/Storm Watching Oct-May 15th: $95 - $105 single/double Summer May 16th-Sept 30th: $105 - $115 single/double View Our Rooms Check-in: 4:00 - 6:00 PM (or Call) Check-out: by 11:00 AM Cancellation Policy: 72 hours Credit Cards: Visa - MasterCard Checks: Accepted Sorry - No pets |
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Home by the Sea "Traditional-Style" Bed and Breakfast Port Orford OR 97465 (541) 332-2855 USA toll-free (877) 332-2855 |
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 Pacific Coast Scenic Byway |
Copyright © 1996-2008
Updated: May 2, 2008
