The Jenkins Estate
Near Dundee, Oregon
This is the Jenkins Estate, on the National Register of Historic Places. In nineteen twelve, Ralph and Belle Ainsworth Jenkins bought this hillside for seven thousand dollars as a summer home. Belle was the daughter of John Ainsworth, a founder of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the riverboat empire that once ruled the Columbia.
The couple loved horses and found city life confining, so they built a retreat in the style of an English hunting lodge. It took three years to finish and came with a grand three floor stable and covered riding arena, English gardens, a greenhouse, an ornamental pool, a tea house, a carriage house, and a water tower. In nineteen seventy-six, the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District bought the sixty-eight acre estate, and today it is open to the public.
