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Now & Then  |  By Paul Dorpat

Whirl With The Wurlitzer

AT 9 SHARP this coming Saturday morning Louis Magor, distinguished keyboard player, Admiral District resident and manager of West Seattle's Kenyon Hall, will confidently sit before the hall's mighty Wurlitzer theater pipe organ and make rolling music. He'll be playing before those assembling at the hall for the West Seattle Historical Society's "Homes With History" tour, which will begin at the conclusion of the concert, around 10 a.m., and continue until 4 p.m.

(The mighty Wurlitzer is also an excellent way to wake up to the weekend. Free coffee and bagels will help you along.)

This year's tour features 10 West Seattle destinations, and at each stop the owner — and/or someone who knows the place and its history — will be on hand to greet and shepherd all who show.

Like those in years past, this is a self-guided tour. You pick up your map at Kenyon Hall — 7904 35th Ave. S.W. — with the list of destinations and head out any way you want to, knowing your hosts will be ready through most of the afternoon.

Besides Kenyon Hall, which was built in 1916 as Olympic Heights Club House, a friendly community social club, the tour includes two Craftsman-style residences, two examples of Colonial Revival architecture, one classic American Foursquare, a Tudor Revival (the grand Hainsworth mansion on 37th Avenue Southwest), a log structure and a landmark facility more often closed to citizens than not since 9/11, the Alki Lighthouse.

Besides the pleasure and insights it offers, this yearly tour to different landmarks is also a benefit for the Southwest Seattle Historical Society and its Log House Museum. For details call the museum at 206-938-5293 or check out www.loghousemuseum.org.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.