-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.wweek.com/html/cultfeature.html <A HREF="http://www.wweek.com/html/cultfeature.html">Willamette Week | Culture Feature </A> ----- photo by George Kelly Behind the Seersucker Curtain You've walked by their headquarters and along streets named after their members. You live in what was--and may still be--their city. But few outsiders know anything about Portland's private clubs. We opened the mail slot and took a peek. BY MATT SCHWARTZ 243-2122 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Americans are a friendly breed. We love parties, commerce, war and big cars. And we're joiners. The American handshake is a joyous, kinetic event, and it hurts a little bit, because we like to squeeze. When Alexis de Tocqueville was in between throwing back pints with the likes of Andrew Jackson, he wrote that an American without drinking buddies "would be robbed of one half his existence...his wretchedness would be unbearable." Not wanting to feel wretched, Portlanders seek out places to be around people like themselves. Artists scribble away in coffee shops. Hustlers lounge in pool halls. And rich folks join private clubs. Though it would make for a more exciting story, Portland clubs aren't exactly blood-sealed covens of druidic illuminati. Like the rest of us, steel-haired steel heirs want to drink, play cards, tell dirty jokes and do favors for their friends. But while one of my favors might involve swapping a bag of day-old pastries for a bouquet, private club hook-ups begin with a single malt and end in mergers, plywood sales and campaign contributions. For a time, explicit bylaws and tacit understandings excluded Portland women, blacks and Jews from these private deals. But decades of agitation by City Council, judges and private citizens have opened up even Arlington Club, Portland's "supreme bastion of gentile male chauvinism," according to historian E. Kimbark MacColl's The Shaping of a City. They may smell like your attic, but private clubs remain formidable conglomerates of wealth, connections and power. Will they be around for much of the next century? Here are our predictions. Arlington Club Location: 811 SW Salmon St., at the South Park Blocks. Founded: 1869, by local alpha males and self-made WASPs. Charter membership roll includes the names Reed, Macleay, Ladd, Failing and Cicero H. Lewis (the guy who helped found the Portland Art Museum and the county library system). Insignia: Interlocked red "A" and "C" on a white field Raison d'Être: The club's charter focuses on the "development...social advantage, improvement and enjoyment" of its members. Arlington once provided grist for bored society-page columnists, a service now performed by the Trail Blazers. Building: The neoclassical, ivy-cloaked brick and spotless alabaster pillars evoke Monticello, Harvard, the Pantheon and the structural foresight of the third little pig. Inside, the club offers a wine room, a card room, a large bar, a formal dining room and several private rooms for meetings and rest. Business documents are not permitted in public areas. Members and Guests: Of the nine Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee members WW contacted, eight were Arlington members, including the president of U.S. Bank of Oregon and a senior vice president for Portland General Electric. Dirt: Jews were tacitly banned from club membership until the late 1960s, when the feared Chief Judge Gus J. Solomon campaigned against the policy, allowing prominent attorney Moe Tonkon to join. Women gained entry in 1990. As recently as 1989, minority Arlington members numbered less than 3 percent. There are also persistent rumors of a cabinet full of Playboy. Cost: The approximately 500 members pay $750 each in annual dues. Prospects: The recent resurgence of martinis, steaks, cigars, swing dancing and massive capital gains should preserve the club until 2030, when colonization of city industries by multinationals finally renders local deal-making anachronistic. (Recently colonized territory includes PGE, Blitz Weinhard, The Oregonian and Fred Meyer.) The University Club Location: 1225 SW 6th Ave. Founded: 1898, by college graduates who desired an Oregon equivalent of East Coast university clubs. Sixteen of the University Club's 56 charter members were members of Arlington Club. Insignia: Arlingtonesque union of a "U" and "C" Raison d'Être: Academic camaraderie and discussion of the day's events. Possible covert usurpation of Arlington Club. Building: A superb Jacobethan façade of looming brick and high-arched windows makes the University Club resemble a spookily large gingerbread house. The interior, which club manager John Elmore was kind enough to offer a tour of, is somewhere between a musty rec room and the Musée d'Orsay. More than 200 individual dice cups decorate the bar so members can roll for drinks and dinner. A formal dining room with 30-foot rafters is finished, fittingly, in Oregon Douglas fir. You're more likely to find Grisham and Koontz in the lending library than Plutarch or Browning. Members and Guests: As maximum fellowship has given way to maximum convenience, the crossover membership between the University and Arlington has dwindled. The club now seems to be composed of an old guard of scholarly attorneys and a younger generation of junior partners and real-estate agents hoping to climb the ladder up to Arlington. One member says that when the club discounted memberships for last year's 100th anniversary, "every Realtor in town picked one up." Billion-heir Steve Forbes and former Sens. Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood have all put in appearances. Dirt: In the spirit of wholesome, collegiate fun, University boys can get a little wild. The club's first meeting place was next door to a house of ill repute, and two members lost their dignity and real-estate jobs after being caught in the rough with a tarty golf strumpet at the club's 1990 Waverly tourney. The University Club also excluded Jews until the late 60s but accepted women as non-voting members before Arlington would even allow them on its premises. Cost: Less than $1,000 annually. The club has approximately 1,000 members, including 71 women. Prospects: The University Club has slowed its decline with a willingness to adapt, allowing business papers and smoking in certain public areas and instituting a Dockers-friendly dress code. If it doesn't get ransacked by Y2K looters, the club should coast along until 2010. The Snowshoe Club Location: Cloud Cap, near Cooper Spur, Mount Hood Founded: Organized in 1904 by Wesley Ladd (of Ladd's Addition) for a chummy "annual winter outing." Raison d'Être: To the 40-odd members of the Snowshoe Club, the bluest of Portland bluebloods, money alone does not confer status. It's in the genes. The hyper-exclusive Snowshoe provides members a place to escape the petty concerns of Arlington Club pecking orders and enjoy each other's company on the pristine north side of the mountain. Members and Guests: Approximately half of the current members are the sons or daughters of older members. Other members include expert mountain-climbers and blue-collar journeymen who help with the club's upkeep. One member recalled a group of wandering hikers who were invited into the cabin as guests and treated to a night's shelter and some hot grog. Cost: A few hundred dollars annually for maintenance and utility bills. Prospects: Given steady birth rates and the perpetual attraction of winter sports, the club should survive forever. The Town Club Location: 2115 SW Salmon St. Founded: 1928, by forlorn ladies whose husbands were spending all their time at Arlington Club Insignia: The club's doorway. Closed, naturally. Raison d'Être: Manager Mike Roberts insists that "this is just a place where ladies eat lunch." One former employee agrees, saying "the club exists to give women who are too rich to have to do anything something to do." Ladies play arcane parlor games like whist, pitch and cribbage and nip at the rare cocktail. Building: A Spanish-roofed brick structure enclosing a sunken garden. Folger Johnson, the architect, recalled "having seen on a trip to northern Italy, a structure...its unusual architectural merit residing almost exclusively in its form and fenestration." Dirt, or the Closest Thing: The club has been a job-market haven for struggling young artists: Past employees reportedly include King Black Acid frontman Daniel Riddle and poet Melody Jordan. Cost: The club doesn't disclose dues for its 400 members, but they could be a bit higher than the other clubs', given the Town Club's notorious fetish for redecorating. Prospect: The club's filigreed wall of decorum should fall to the feminist movement's 40-year siege around 2005. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published July 14, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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