Taking a dip into history around River Sol
As River Sol attempts to shape history for greener, healthier home construction, its location is connected to notable components that contributed to Bend’s development, including wood products and tourism/recreation.
For wood products, Henry Linster operated a planing mill at today’s River Sol site in the early 1900s. River Sol’s street, NW Linster Place just north of Pioneer Park, is named after the German immigrant, who came to Bend by way of Wisconsin. He bought a separate riverside mill from Henry Reed and John Steidl in 1905, but that burned in 1908 and he rebuilt with the planing mill sometime before 1912, the date on a map by Bend’s city engineer showing the mill. He also built the Linster Opera House and Social Hall in Bend in 1910, which burned in 1912 and wasn’t rebuilt, according to Vanessa Ivey, Deschutes County Historical Society museum manager, who researched River Sol area history as part of its Living Building Challenge biophilic design.
When Linster came out from Wisconsin, he planned more than processing logs; he envisioned producing window and door sashes for a community that while small was expected to grow. There were 258 residents in 1903 among the townships of Lytle (which includes the River Sol site), Bend and Deschutes, all later incorporated as Bend, Ivey said.
Linster also was instrumental in the early development of East Lake Resort, she said, citing his 1937 obituary. The resort, opened in 1915 on the east shore of East Lake, next to Paulina Lake in the Newberry volcano caldera south of Bend. It was rebuilt in 1942 and still operates today.
He also was an agriculturist, planting 400 apple trees across the Deschutes River from the mill and a ¾-acre garden on the hill above the mill and River Sol, each irrigated by water pumped from the river at the mill site, Ivey said.
River Sol owners Scott and Lisa May will bring some urban agriculture to the site, planting their property with food-producing vegetation — including apple trees around their courtyard in a link to Linster’s apple-growing past — and other plants friendly to pollinators and wildlife. They also want to include a small greenhouse for year-round food growth, and are considering aquaponics and other innovative food production related to Scott’s work as a food scientist.
Aquatics also are part of the area’s history. Immediately southwest of River Sol’s property line, a large swimming pool fed by the Deschutes River opened in1928 as part of the Bend Auto Court, essentially an early Bend resort with bungalows to rent, a campground, and the pool for guests and locals, Ivey said. The pool closed in 1936, reopened in 1939, and closed permanently in 1940.
The 50-by-150-foot pool, built by Greek immigrants A.C. (Angel) and Cyrus Kirtsis, was actually a steel tank and referred to as Kirtsis Tank, according to a Deschutes County Historical Society newsletter in October 2017, which noted the then-Riverside Motel at former auto court site. The tank, which held 330,000 gallons of water, was cleaned twice weekly by flushing the water back to the river from one end and refilling it with fresh river water from the other. The newsletter contains an advertisement in The Bulletin that read, “Swim in one of Oregon’s purest outdoor pools.”
In 1936, swimming cost 10 cents for kids, 25 cents for adults. For people who couldn’t afford that during the Depression, swimming was free, Ivey said. The Red Cross offered swim lessons there.
Later, the pool would be heated by burning hog fuel (basically sawdust) from area mills, Ivey said. After it closed, the site was filled and covered by four Riverside Motel rental units, the basement for one of which includes the former tank’s deep end, according to the newsletter. The property was later known as Bend Riverside Inn and Suites and now comprises riverfront cottages, condos, and studios that are part of Riverside Commons Condominiums and managed by Bend Riverside Rentals, according to its website.
The mill and pool are just two pieces of the colorful mosaic comprising Bend’s history and are important elements in the place River Sol will occupy.
“These are all pieces of a big story and the story continually is evolving,” Ivey said.
River Sol will continue the evolution in Living Building Challenge construction started by the Desert Rain home in Bend.
On architecture tours around Bend, Ivey has referred to Desert Rain as a house of the future, changing rules on how homes are built and opening the door for similar construction.
Desert Rain broke that ground “and now you have another one (River Sol) … also breaking ground and creating new rules for construction,” Ivey said, hopeful new homes will adopt some its features as well.