Westerlook House

Built: 1911

Note: This house is on private property. Do not disturb.

The Westerlook Farm, at 9771 Hwy 47 in Carlton, has a classic American picket fence at the entrance. The Colonial Revival-style estate was designed by renowned architect Ellis Lawrence and built in 1911 for Charles Ladd and Sarah Hall Ladd. The 46-acre parcel, at the north fork of the Yamhill River, also has a carriage house with a guest apartment, two shops, three barns, three greenhouses and a cold room.

The Westerlook house has many Old World elements: Cars drive through a porte-cochere. Columns on both sides of the arched front door hoist Georgian-style S-shaped brackets. Another decorative piece, a finial, rises between the scrolls. Inside, there are hardwood floors and French doors, built-in cabinets with leaded glass doors, thick crown molding and a sunroom with a stained glass ceiling.

Original owners Charles and Sarah Ladd spent millions to create Westerlook during the pre-World War I years. Architecturally, it was similar to the couple's Portland mansion, Cedarhurst.

Banker and businessman Charles Ladd was the son of early developer and Portland mayor William S. Ladd. Charles Ladd also dabbled in landscape design, according to a 1920 story in the Telephone Register of McMinnville. He hired three railroad cars to deliver plants to his estate.

His wife was equally as interesting. Sarah Hall Ladd was a well-known landscape photographer who traveled the Columbia River on a houseboat with a darkroom during the summers from 1903 to 1905.

Over the next three quarters of a century, the home had several owners: in the ‘20s, shipbuilders Walter and Mary Beebe, who added the carriage entrance on the east side and used Westerlook as their "weekend retreat"; A.T. and Ethel Otis, who built the dairy barn, in the 30s; John and Orbin Beall in the early 40s; E.J. and Christina Linke, also mill owners and major benefactors of Carlton, from 1947 to the early 1980s; Monica Willey from 1982 to 1991; Michael Sheehan until 1995. Peter and Marilyn Shultz lived here for about 20 years.