NOVEMBER 22, 2018 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
Mary Louise and
the Flavel name
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
I
DANNY MILLER PHOTO
Afternoon light hits the Flavel mansion located at 15th Street and Franklin Avenue in 2016.
coast
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
arts & entertainment
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THE ARTS
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CONTRIBUTORS
KATHERINE LACAZE
EVE MARX
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
PATRICK WEBB
‘Tipped Over’
Ocean Park musician writes apocalyptic novel
COASTAL LIFE
Gingerbread Tea
Butterfield Cottage hosts tasteful entertainment
FEATURE
Parade
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BOOK REVIEW
‘Magdalena Mountain’
Bob Pyle’s novel a tonic for dark days of winter
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
MUSIC HAPPENINGS ...............5
CROSSWORD ...............................6
SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11
EVE MARX COLUMN .............. 12
CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16
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n the early 2000s, direc-
tor Gus Van Sant wanted
to use the Flavel man-
sion on Franklin Avenue
and 15th Street in Astoria in
his film “The Last Days,”
an art-house look at the
slow, pathetic decline of a
Kurt Cobain-type musician.
At first Mary Louise
Flavel rather liked the idea,
according to local histo-
rian John Goodenberger.
The Flavels had a history
of supporting the arts and
boosting Astoria’s cultural
standing; offering up their
famed family residence for
the project would carry on
that tradition. Van Sant even
said he’d do restoration
work on the tumbledown
relic, which had become a
neighborhood eyesore since
Mary Louise, her brother,
Harry Flavel, and their
mother, Florence, aban-
doned it in 1990.
Then the question came
up: How would the house
be portrayed in the movie?
What Mary Louise
learned didn’t please her:
The house would symbolize
the main character’s fall
from grace, as this once
great and promising figure
retreats into himself and his
life falls apart.
Mary Louise didn’t want
her childhood home, built
by her grandfather in 1901,
associated with that kind of
vibe — though, because of
the Flavel family’s decline,
it already was. In the end,
the filmmakers pulled out,
THOMAS ROTT PHOTO
Features Editor Erick Bengel.
and the mansion continued
to decay until Greg Newen-
hof purchased it in 2015.
A theme that emerges in
conversations with people
who knew Mary Louise —
who was living in Portland
and died of natural causes
last month at age 93 — is
that she was, at all times,
mindful of what her actions
would say about her as a
Flavel.
In her youth, Astoria
was a small town where old
families strove to keep their
names respectable, accord-
ing to Goodenberger. As
Astoria royalty, the descen-
dant of Capt. George Flavel,
she knew the world would
view her every success and
misstep through the lens of
her distinguished lineage.
Mary Louise was des-
tined to be a talked-about
figure in Astoria whether
she wanted to be or not.
And the Flavel name, with
all its hereditary baggage
and responsibility, would
have been hard to uphold,
Continued on Page 6