Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner The Villa's Venetian Room accommodates cozy chats or entire wedding parties. Stained concrete floors are by Mark Crawford of Winlock. |
Tuscan bed & breakfast opens at cliffside Columbia River property
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:16 AM PST
By Cathy Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articleJoan Harvey Chester grew up on the Columbia River west of Longview, holding luaus on the beach and sometimes, goaded by her older brothers, swimming out to the log rafts and letting the current bring her back.
"It was so dangerous!" Chester said last week. She recently told her mother about how she took the dare, and the older woman "went white."
The 1969 Mark Morris graduate, who took off that year for Australia with her twin and never looked back, has recently returned to the family property at Little Cape Horn. And once again, she's taking a flying leap.
Chester and her fiance, Richard Erickson, have built The Villa, a Tuscan bed and breakfast that actually is a villa. It has a tiled roof, a vast, high-ceilinged great room with a stone floor; wrought iron balconies and chandeliers; three lavish guest rooms, a roomy kitchen and a columned loggia overlooking the river.
"I wanted to bring a little bit of Tuscany to the area," Chester said.
The Villa has hosted weddings, parties and overnight guests. This Sunday, Longview Stageworks will hold an afternoon fund-raiser there.
"I keep trying to shut this thing down to finish it," said Chester, who has painting details and trim work still to do. Every time she tries, someone or something turns up, she said.
Leaving Dallas high society
"I came home to be a river rat," she said, "and not dress up any more. ... Washington State is my home. I love it here."
Her full circle is one big, far-flung loop. After a couple of years in Australia, Chester worked as a flight attendant and later married a Dallas obstetrician. She sold real estate in Texas and threw herself into charity work, making famous use of a hat collection that grew to number 1,000 toppers.
"When you buy a hat from Europe, they're different, different inside," said Chester, who has hats from Italy, Scotland and England; a hat by the Queen of England's designer and an original owned by Joan Crawford. She wore the hats at the Mad Hatter in Dallas for annual themed events, and has donned them for the Kentucky Derby. (Chester's twin, Janet, lives in Lexington, Ky.)
Chester, now divorced from the Dallas doc, planned at first to build a rustic cabin as a getaway on the property where she grew up at Little Cape Horn, west of County Line Park.
"This was a cliff," Chester said. She couldn't get anyone local to blast out a road and a flat platform for a cabin, so "Dad came back from the Marshall Islands. He said, 'Honey, I can do it.' "
Chester's father, Bob Harvey, retired as a superintendent for Weyerhaeuser. He indeed got the road and space taken care of. That was 18 years ago. While the house plans waited, 911 happened, and it put Chester between a rock and a hard place.
"It hit me hard financially. I had to sell my home in Dallas."
She decided to build something substantial on the river and make it her residence. Architect Bruce Taylor of Summit Design in Park City, Utah, designed the villa.
Chester and Erickson acted as their own general contractors and Chester's brother Rob Harvey, who lives in Longview, helped on construction, she said. Work began in 2004 and the move-in date was April last year. With the land, the project is now worth just under $1 million, Erickson said.
European look, by local craftsmen
The Villa feels Mediterranean, from its warm gold exterior to its cool concrete floors stained sienna brown and stenciled, to the delicate counterpoint of wrought iron and the spare use of massive, European antiques.
Mark Crawford of Winlock did the floors, Chester said.
Even the way it faces and opens out onto the river makes it look like a mansion on Lake Como.
The main "Venetian Room" can accommodate tables and chairs for a wedding reception or intimate seating areas for a party. It took four men from Teague's Interiors to install the 5-by-7 foot mirror that hangs over the fireplace, she said. Wall sconces came from the San Antonio opera house. And the chandeliers are on electric lifts.
"I can bring them down to clean them and decorate them for Christmas," she said.
The gas fireplace, with a faux-marble iron mantel from Lexington, Ky., is up about two and a half feet off the floor with a big apron-like hearth where brides and ministers sometimes stand, Chester said.
"We have wedding and eloping packages. That seems to be the most fun for us."
The Villa's living quarters on the first floor are opened for the use of brides and their wedding parties, she said.
Upstairs, each guest room overlooks the river, with sitting areas where you can have breakfast (Chester will deliver it), windows that open outward, and bright bathrooms flooded with light and fresh air. One room is gold and red, another dark blue and green, and the third is black and ivory with pale yellow walls.
People have visited from Seattle and Portland, Chester said. "The majority of our guests Google us. They want to get away."
With two miles of beach down a gravel road, and surprising quiet downhill from the highway, The Villa must hit the spot. Even Chester has found time to relax.
"I go down at 8 or 9 on a Friday night with a cocktail and sit by the trees," she said. "The big boats come by. It's wonderful."
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