Aunt Mariah wasn’t exaggerating when she said her Sol bought her a huge, expensive house.
The exterior looks like something right out of Architectural Digest if they were doing an article on the most impressive, old-money houses of Portland. The view is fantastic—right across the way from the duck pond and lawns green with the spring rain at Laurelhurst Park—but the front yard is ginormous with the house set far back on the property and gates blocking unwanted guests from snaking up the cobblestone driveway that leads to a proper servants’ entrance. I park where I think is appropriate and follow the paved path around to the double-wide, carved-wood front door.
A maid answers the bell, introducing herself as Christina. She’s dressed in a light-blue dress with a white apron tied over the f
