Cyndy’s Construction Begins!
There was big excitement here in Oysterville yesterday! The perimeter was laid out for the foundation for our newest neighbor’s garage. Now we can begin to get a sense of how the building plans will evolve from drawings on paper to bricks and mortar or, in this case, lumber and nails. Cyndy Hayward’s house! Whoo Hoo!!
While Tucker and Carol’s house and construction site is across the street from us and one house away to the west, Cyndy’s is up the street and one house away to the north. You can stand at one location and watch the activity at both, all at the same time! I don’t think that has ever been possible in Greater Downtown Oysterville during my lifetime.
Tucker and Carol’s construction, of course, involves renovation of an historic building – a building which they have owned and occupied for a long while and that is situated on property that has been in the Wachsmuth family for generations. Cyndy’s project, on the other hand, is new construction and is happening on property new to her. There has not been a building there “within living memory,” as they say.
Nonetheless, I feel (absolutely without good reason) a proprietorial connection with Cyndy’s building project. When I was a little girl, all the property to the north of our family house was a big meadow. I believe the Heckes family owned the strip along Merchant Street – the wide, grassy path to the bay that we always called “the Heckes Lane” – and the Espy family owned the portion adjacent to my grandfather’s vegetable garden. I always thought of it as “Papa’s property” and probably the Heckes kids thought of it as belonging to their grandfather.
Stevens Hotel to left of Heckes House, circa 1925
My mother remembered that the Stevens Hotel, one of the first structures built in Oysterville, was still standing on that property when she was a little girl. “It’s where the bachelors lived,” she said. I think by that time – 1915 or so – the building was quite derelict and might have been owned by Andrew Wirt. I’m not sure who “the bachelors” were – perhaps one was old Cripple Johnson, a beloved Oysterville character of a hundred years ago.
When the Heckes family arrived in the 1920s, they must have purchased the Stevens Hotel property at the same time they purchased the John Crellin House — the house they lovingly restored and made into a summer boarding house. I know that “The Annex” (which, sadly, was demolished a few years back) to the Heckes Inn was made from the lumber from the Stevens Hotel. I’ve always been curious about that hotel building and, only recently, ran across of photograph showing part of it. It looks to be right in the location where Cyndy’s house will soon go up.
In the midst all this new construction, it seems fitting to remember the provenance of the properties in a little village the size of ours, particularly given that Oysterville is a National Historic District. As long as there are still people like Tucker with generational ties to the old families and as long as there are new folks like Cyndy with a deep respect for the past, I feel assured that the ‘village memory’ will be perpetuated. Again I say, Whoo Hoo!
At times I’ve been able to sit on my porch and watch multiple projects going on. It’s better than television (which we don’t have anyway). I am glad that you help to keep the stories of Oysterville’s roots alive while welcoming “fresh blood”–so to speak.