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
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