»INSIDE
WEEKEND EDITION // SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
149TH YEAR, NO. 115
$1.50
HERITAGE SQUARE
New
outline
includes
plaza
The change came after
public feedback
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Tiff any Boothe/Seaside Aquarium
Sea lions roam the waters around Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. The historic lighthouse has been used as a columbarium for
decades, but is now for sale.
‘TErribLe tillY’
A STORIED NORTH COAST LANDMARK GOES ON THE MARKET
Owner is asking
for $6.5 million
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
KMUN
‘T
errible Tilly,” the historic
141-year-old Tillamook Rock
Lighthouse off the coast near
Cannon Beach, is for sale.
Mimi Morissette, the owner, listed
the property for $6.5 million. She had
once hoped to turn the decommis-
sioned lighthouse into a large columbar-
ium, a place to store people’s cremated
remains. There was room, she said, for
up to 300,000 urns.
But Morissette’s plan never really
took off .
Forty-two years later, the ashes of
only 31 people, including Morissette’s
parents, have been laid to rest at the
lighthouse. Morissette, who is 77, has
concluded it is time for someone else to
take over.
“It is time for me to pass the baton,”
she said.
An ad went out this week and Moris-
sette is confi dent she’ll fi nd a buyer.
“I think it’s a given,” she said. “I
think I’ll sell it and I think I’ll close it by
the end of the year.”
She traveled this week to a confer-
ence in Las Vegas to seek out potential
buyers. She told KMUN she connected
with a large cemetery brokerage and
consulting fi rm that has several poten-
tial buyers in mind.
The Tillamook Rock Lighthouse is
notorious for the lives claimed during
scoping and construction.
Challenges
Morissette bought the property with
her business partners in 1980 and began
selling spaces for urns, but cremation
was less common at the time. Then,
the columbarium lost its state license
in 1999 and, despite a fi ght, she was
unable to renew it.
She was also dogged by consumer
complaints fi led with the state Depart-
ment of Justice about how remains were
stored in the lighthouse and issues with
refunds. Some families told the New
York Times in 2007 that they felt misled
by promises made by Morissette’s com-
pany, Eternity at Sea Inc. In the 1990s,
vandals reportedly broke into the light-
house and made off with two urns.
Morissette said when Eternity at Sea
started selling spaces in the columbar-
ium, they hadn’t realized the metal they
were using to house urns could not with-
stand a maritime environment. Then
there was the issue with the state license
that dragged on for years. Morissette
said she pushed pause to regroup.
Whoever buys Terrible Tilly will
be taking on a diffi cult-to-reach island
property that — besides acting as a
home to the dead — shelters seabirds
like cormorants and common murres
on its basalt crags. Sea lions are known
to haul out on the rocks below. In fact,
the last time Morissette tried to visit the
island, she couldn’t leave the helicopter
because there were too many sea lions
blocking the way.
Terrible Tilly, built in the 1880s,
became notorious for being dangerous
as well as expensive to operate. It was
decommissioned in 1957.
Today, the lighthouse exerts a strong
pull on amateur and professional artists
and photographers and can be seen from
various viewpoints within the popular
Ecola State Park.
The lighthouse is a privately owned
part of the federal Oregon Coast
National Wildlife Refuge Complex and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service holds
a conservation easement over the prop-
erty. According to Brent Lawrence, a
spokesman for the F ish and W ildlife
S ervice, Morissette has agreed to only
visit the island at certain times of the
year to avoid disturbing birds during the
breeding season.
Edlen & Co., the developer collabo-
rating with the city on a proposed work-
force housing project at Heritage Square,
unveiled a new outline Thursday during a
second open house at the Astoria Armory.
Stuart Emmons, the project’s archi-
tect, said the new concept incorporates
some of the public feedback from the fi rst
open house earlier this month.
The change would create room for a
large plaza along Duane Street near the
Garden of Surging Waves. The open
space w ould be fl exible and could be used
as parking, by the Astoria Sunday Market
or for other activities. A parking lot with
24 spaces would sit behind the plaza.
Some critics of the workforce housing
project have called on the city to pursue
a plaza, amphitheater or park at Heritage
Square, which were among the original
ideas after the city acquired the former
Safeway property two decades ago. Over
the past several years, the City Coun-
cil has made housing a goal at Heritage
Square.
See Open house, Page A6
City leaders hear
concerns about
homelessness,
businesses
Forum comes amid
tensions downtown
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
A community forum on homelessness
and livability drew questions and con-
cerns about safety and support for the
homeless and downtown businesses.
A panel of city, business and social
services leaders shared information and
answered questions from the public
during the discussion Wednesday night at
the Liberty Theatre.
The forum was organized amid grow-
ing public frustration over behavioral
issues and quality of life concerns that
stem from an increasingly visible home-
less population. In the coming weeks, the
Astoria C ity Council will consider adopt-
ing ordinances to give police more tools
to respond to some of the issues.
See Tilly, Page A6
See Forum, Page A6
At the old JC Penney, Vintage Hardware hopes for a permanent home
Antique store moves
to Commercial Street
By ABBEY McDONALD
The Astorian
People passing by occasionally
cheered Paul Tuter as he worked
on the wire fence this week out-
side the former J.C. Penney Co.
building downtown . He raised his
hammer in greeting.
The word was out: Tuter and
Becky Johnson, the co-owners of
Astoria Vintage Hardware, would
be moving their business into the
Commercial Street building that
has been vacant for fi ve years.
“Vintage Hardware is so
blessed and the community has
always loved us, and we’re a
real community-based store. And
they’ve always rallied and sup-
ported us when we’ve been in a
real estate jam, when we’ve had to
fi nd new locations,” Johnson said.
“It means so much.”
She said it will be the sixth time
in about a dozen years that Vintage
Hardware has relocated. They last
moved in 2016 after being asked
to vacate the building that would
become Mo’s Restaurant.
This time, Johnson said Vin-
tage Hardware is moving because
their lease expired on Marine
Drive and they anticipated a rent
increase.
“It was just realizing it was
kind of time to take destiny into
our own hands, and not be in the
position of being a tenant and not
having that security,” she said.
“(I) just talked to my family and
we all decided it was an invest-
ment that we wanted to pursue
and now it will be Vintage Hard-
ware’s forever home.”
Knowing the J.C. Penney build-
ing was a potential option, John-
son reached out to owner Sean
Fitzpatrick, who bought the build-
ing in 2018 with Chris Holen, the
chef and co-owner of the restau-
rant Nekst.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
See Store, Page A6
Vintage Hardware is moving into the old J.C. Penney Co. building on
Commercial Street.