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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2003)
PEOPLE hat started out 14 years ago as merely a holiday open house has grown into an annual party that gives a Portland queer-friendly fcxxl hank reason to celebrate— and a gay couple reason to decorate. Every November around Thanksgiving, Bill Bender and Ted Mistier begin pulling down from the third-floor eaves of their 1907 Sears Roebuck catalog house more than 900 oma- * ments, yards of garland and at least one Christ mas tree for every room. The couple, who have been together for 19 years, deck their house top to bottom to host an annual holiday party for 300 or so family, friends and neighbors— each summoned by Mistler’s hand-addressed invitations. “It started out with just having an open house in the living rcxim,” says Bender, a Gresh am native who is a retired Multnomah County parole and probation officer. “Then it got bigger and bigger, and we’d decorate another nxxn, and now we decorate every rixnn.” Guests are asked to bring a nonperishable fixxl item to benefit Esther’s Pantry, a program of Portland’s Metropolitan Community Church that helps people living with AID S to main tain themselves independently. The festive get-together also gives the couple a chance to show off their restoration of a Njorth Portland home that had fallen into disrepair after being used as a warehouse. Bender and Mistier renovated with contemporary conveniences but made sure to maintain its historic character, even consulting with the original owner’s daughter, who grew up in the hixise. The home now is filled with family heirlooms, antiques and collections ranging from wall clocks to ceramic chickens. And holiday décor galore. “I sit down in October and decide what color lights I want in each rixim and whether 1 want a tall tree or a tree on a table.... And then 1 decide what kind of ornaments 1 want,” says Bender, who explains that each rcxim has its own theme and every year it’s different. As sixin as you open the front dixir, you see the first tree— majestically towering up from the red and white themed foyer, housed by the wrap-around staircase, next to an antique fixin- tain from a Catholic church where Bender and his mother were baptized. To the right is the living room, with silent- movie piano, inviting fireplace and a chair big enough for Santa to hold kids of all ages. Strung on the trees and around the room are more than 700 antique ornaments. “Some of them are really fragile, and some thing like this,” Bender says, cradling a small globe with simple decoration, “is not necessari ly really beautiful, hut it’s probably 100 years old or more. To us, they’re all pretty." Others have particular sentimental value. W Holiday elaboration Gay couple’s decorations yield donations by T imothy K rause • P hotos by M arty D avis T he attic is a child’s rainy-day Bender points to a little Christmas sock. The dream, with nooks and crannies burgundy velvet was once the material of his filled with intriguing collections, grandmother’s dress, which later was turned into surprises and treasures. T h e room a jacket for his uncle. When his uncle passed has a country-western feel, including away, Bender’s aunt used the material to make a the background music wafting pair of large Christmas suckings for him anil his through the rafters. Bur the large partner, along with smaller stocking ornaments. tree, which appears to he breaking O n the opposite side of the entryway is the through the rixtf, holds more 1-Spy dining rix>m decorated with an angel-themed discoveries than Antuiues RoaiLshmv. tree. The evergreen is flanked by two tnimpet- “A n attic tree with everything ing angels of plaster that Mistier retrieved from out of the attic," jokes Bender, a church in Albany and restored from damage pointing to a cigar box, a clock, suffered by an arson fire. even.an old camera. “You can ’t At the rear of the house is the candy-themed have tix) much. Enough is never kitchen, which also is the only rixim that has been completely gutted and mixJemized. “We redesigned it into a mixJem kitchen D,mue mnv?. nmperisUC /,««] Mm but tried to keep it full of old,” notes Bender as or personal care products to he passes by a wixxl-fired kitchen cook stove E sther ’ s P antry at that warms the air. He highlights more collec 2761 N.E. Halsey St., tions: rolling pins, graters, sifters and in the 503-493-2222. comer a string of shiny metal halls. “That started as a project: 1 was going to do a wreath one year with tea halls...and it just kind of got carried away," admits Mistier, who grew up in Garden Home and is retired from the dietitian’s office at University of Oregon’s medical schixil. Upstairs, a cozy T V room takes on the feel of a snug winter lixlge holding a pine decorated with teddy hears and sitting atop a bearskin mg. Across the hall is a nutcracker suite where little uniformed men climb a tree perched on top of a bass drum. Another nx>m next door is home to antique dolls and a tree elabo rately decorated pink and white with bows, toys and ladies’ pix:ketfxx)ks. An enormous four-poster dominates the final bednxxn, crowned with branches that Mistier wove along the bed’s top and decorated in the playful theme of' tassels. Tucked away in a basement room, carved ixit of the house’s original Mixlel T garage, is the Harley Rixxn. The tree here sports Harley-Davidson motorcycle miniatures, kigos, omamerlts and even black-and-orange candy canes— all illuminated with thickly stmng orange lights. The centerpiece, of cixirse, is Bender’s hike, itself sparkling What home would he complete without like a kid’s Christmas morning surprise. a traditional holiday Harley tree? But there’s more. Ted (left) and Bill’s red and white tree goes up through ,he miJdle of ,he 1907 home's " raP-amunJ Dignity in Safe Schools ■ "■ -¡S' mr EQUI I Y Your gift to Equity is an investment in dignity. A Gay-Straight Alliance can make all the difference. 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