Oregon Inn To Reopen
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Jan. 22, 2007
The View Point Inn, the last of 21 inns built on the Columbia
River Highway in the 1920s, will reopen as a restaurant
next month.
Credit: David A. Barss, View Point Inn
In the 1920s, visitors to Oregon's Columbia River Gorge had 21 inns to choose from. Now there is only one left: the View Point Inn, built in 1924 in Corbett, Ore., where Franklin Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, and European royalty once vacationed.
Next month the National Register-listed View Point Inn will reopen to the public for the first time in four years. On Nov. 9, Multnomah County approved an application for a commercial-use permit for the inn. Many Oregonians wanted to see the gorge's last inn open again, but red tape and legal battles impeded the process.
"We are so excited," says owner Geoff Thompson, who, with co-owner Angelo Simione, will reopen the property as a restaurant and five-bedroom inn. "It's very sad that anyone would have to fight so hard for the obvious."
Designed by Oregon architect Carl Linde, the Tudor Arts and Crafts building was a restaurant until the 1960s and became a private home in 1982. Thompson, who had dreamed of living in the house since he was 10 years old, leased it starting in 1997.
This month, Thompson and co-owner Angelo Simione are installing a commercial kitchen-the final step in a renovation. They plan to install markers on the property that describe the area's lost roadside inns.
"My goal is for it to be a living museum," Thompson says. "Nothing will be roped off; you'll be able to really live in and utilize the whole inn."
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