Pacific NW 09/23/2007 | Totems For Tourists

Now & Then

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Totems For Tourists

COURTESY OF LAWTON GOWEY

THEN: Opened in 1939 when the Ballard Locks were still a peace-time lure for both locals and tourists, the Haida House Curio Shop was eventually closed by the doldrums and restrictions of World War II.

PAUL DORPAT

NOW: After the war, the Ballard rarity was opened again by new owners -- not for dealing curios, but chips and fish. The original structure survives, although somewhat shrouded behind utility poles, glossy paint and the Totem House's oversized sign

Across Northwest 54th Street from the long parking lot at Ballard's Hiram M. Chittenden Locks sits one of Seattle's roadside attractions, the Totem House. Built in 1939 to sell souvenirs, the sturdy cedar structure was called by its owner-builders the Haida House Curio Shop. Like Ivar's Salmon House 30 years later, although much smaller, its shape and parts — the poles, planks and artifacts — were arranged in admiring imitation of North Coast Indian architecture. Here, the flap in the roof opening is up and open, a sensitive tribute to the aboriginal model. (Venting a central fire pit was necessary for a Haida longhouse, but probably not so for the Haida House Curio Shop.)

The building permit for 3058 N.W. 54th St. reveals that the plans were submitted on March 31, 1939, and the final inspection followed only four months later. This speedy construction allowed the owners to lure locks visitors still in the '39 tourist season.

While the building permit describes owner James L. Houston as also its designer, the artist-entrepreneur's children are quite certain that Houston's father-in-law, the jeweler Del Thomas, was behind this enterprise. And it was also Thomas who took this photograph of the landmark shop soon after it was completed.

Houston family history has it that James Houston worked side-by-side with a native carver-builder named Jimmie John to build the place and the totem at the front door. An art student at both Cornish and the University of Washington, the Irishman Houston was a talented watercolorist and jeweler who had a long life in producing carvings done with the materials and refined styles of North Coast tribes.

"Washington Then and Now," the new book by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard, can be purchased through www.washingtonthenandnow.com ($45) or through Tartu Publications at P.O. Box 85208, Seattle, WA 98145.

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