Applegater Spring 2022
‘Why I love the Applegate’
BY DR. WENDY WALSH
Prince Edward Island on the east coast
of Canada, is mostly known for Anne of
Green Gables and the lighthouse tower
that received the first distress signal from
the Titanic. But it’s also an island of rich
farming soil where descendants of Irish
potato-famine immigrants have made the
island’s bounty of potatoes and mussels
world famous. To me, I just call the
place home. It’s where I spent summers
growing up on my grandparents’ dairy
farm, helping the boys haul in hay,
preserving pickles with Granny, and
bottle-feeding lambs.
I’m a former TV news anchor and
current radio host and psychology
professor in Los Angeles. And I’m a new
landowner in the Applegate. I own Red
Barn Farm, the little farm on Highway 238
near Red Lily Vineyards. I discovered it on
an eight-state road trip with my teenagers
during the darkest days of COVID-19
quarantine. Cooped up in a Los Angeles
apartment, itching to breathe some fresh
air, I searched on Facebook for those
friends who had long ago escaped the
city for rural life to places like Montana,
Wyoming, and Oregon. With our car
packed with a cooler full of sandwiches,
thermoses of coffee, and plenty of masks
and gloves, off we went.
The Applegate was the last stop on our
trip, and after a terrifying grizzly sighting
in Montana and sticker-shock housing
prices in Wyoming, this place felt just
right. Here was a pristine river in a lush
valley with my favorite aromas of all time:
wine and cow manure. It was the small
red barn that stopped me in my tracks,
my mind filtering through childhood
memories of playtime in haylofts on Prince
Edward Island. I immediately had a dream
to rebuild my memories for people like
me, those who want to expose their kids
to a farm stay.
The first step was to renovate the
little cottage up by the road. You’ve
probably noticed the black and white
paint job with the firepit behind. I
opened it as an Airbnb last March,
and it became instantly popular with
families and couples from Seattle to
San Diego. They love the Applegate
wine trail, and their great reviews made
me an Airbnb superhost. (Each month
I have to block the calendar early to
have the place for me to stay!) Next are
plans to turn the barn into a hip barn-
stay. My contractor, Jess Campbell, from
Central Point, has been patiently working
with the Jackson County Planning
Commission on this.
I couldn’t have
done any of this
without the warm
welcome and
kindness of my
Applegate neighbors.
I was blessed to meet
a sweet schoolteacher
named Christine
who lives in the main
house and helps co-
h o s t m y A i r b n b.
Without needing to
catch her breath once,
The namesake red barn at Red Barn Farm.
Rachael Martin,
of Red Lily Vineyards,
entertained me with news
of the neighborhood on
a hike through the hills.
My cattle rancher neighbors,
Brett and Courtney Roeloffs,
have devoted their time
and labor for many a
hiccup that comes with rural
living. Honestly, Brett has
redefined the word neighbor
and taken it to a new level!
And now that I’m on Jo’s
List, I’ve found a wealth of
other country-loving folks
Dr. Wendy Walsh in the Red Barn Farm on Highway 238.
who are at the ready to help
when needed.
finest. Thank you, Applegate, for such a
Watch for the barn construction soon. warm welcome! I can’t wait to meet you.
When it’s done, I’ll hold an open house
Dr. Wendy Walsh
where we can drink some of Red Lily’s
wendy@drwendywalsh.com
Erleuchten Lamps:
Lighting grown from the Earth
BY MATTHEW JOHNSON
As a local Applegate artist, I transform
gifts grown from the Earth into master-
crafted works of art for the luxury market,
leveraging multiple disciplines including
woodworking and metal forging.
Growing up with more art supplies
than toys and a partial set of Encyclopedia
Britannica in a broken home, as a child
I found solace educating myself on the
world around me and on different art
techniques and disciplines while taking
art classes in school to further stimulate
my spongy young mind in a diverse range
of art styles and hone techniques in each
style. As I continued my life sojourning
into young adulthood and into the work
force, I wove my way through myriad
fields of technology, business, and design,
to make me the artist I am today.
Because I am light sensitive, ambient
lighting was always of interest. Architectural
lighting can transform a space into a living
and interactive work of art, influencing
mood depending on the colors and tones
used, from the bulb to the materials, and
how the two tie together in a melodic
warm dance.
There is plenty of beautiful ambient
lighting, but I aspired to create something
perfect: lighting that gives a natural earthy
illumination using colors that calm a
person’s psychology and holds an organic
look and feel as if the lighting was not
made by hand but grown from the Earth.
Thus Erleuchten Lamps was created.
Artist Matthew P. Johnson
latitude and longitude lines were drawn
on a gourd; then Earth’s continents and
major warm and cold ocean currents were
Erleuchten Lamps are meticulously and
masterfully handcrafted using hard-shell,
spherical gourds as their “shade” with
designs that fall into one of two categories,
math-based or realism. Math-based
designs use three layers of spherical and
fractal geometry to create beautiful organic
designs. A realism design is currently
shown in Erleuchten Lamps “Home”
page. Once positioning was established,
Come visit!
Serving
breakfast, lunch
and dinner.
Beer and wine
on tap or to go.
Family-run
mapped and transposed. The underneath
of the gourd or lampshade is modeled
after an antique nautical compass. Bases
are made to look like a living element
using natural curves with an endcap
woodworked from local maple burl then
branded with pyrography.
Each Erleuchten Lamp is made by hand
and takes roughly 12 months to complete.
In January 2022, after five years of
work, Erleuchten Lamps released two
collections with seven pieces. The “Relic
Collection” contains five pieces; the
“Ironic Collection,” two pieces.
Visit erleuchten.com for photos
and more information on how the
lamps are made.
Matthew P. Johnson
m@erleuchten.com
The Applegater wants your articles!
Email us at gater@applegater.org
An Erleuchten Lamp created by Applegate
artist Matthew P. Johnson.
Open
7 am - 7 pm
Weds - Sat and
7 am - 3 pm Sun.
Closed Mon
and Tues.
181 Upper Applegate Road
Jacksonville, OR 97530
541-702-2662
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