Bethany, Somerset West, and Oak Hills

Bethany is an old community whose first post office opened in the 1870's. When founded, the village was centered around the Presbyterian Church. The congregation occupies the same location today (above). After more than 150 years, the church has been rebuilt three times. 

Today, most people probably view the shopping center as the new focal point of Bethany. It's a little south of the church and closer to the highway. When I visited, there was plenty of foot traffic from the nearby apartments. With construction on most of the through-roads, incomplete bike lanes, and infrequent crosswalks, I found the whole area a bit hectic to navigate on a bicycle. I doubt I will choose to bike here again without a specific reason.

The other major fixture of Bethany is WashCo's only Portland Community College satellite campus. Beyond higher education, the expansive grounds feature wetlands, dog parks, an archery range and plenty of sports fields.

But most of Bethany is taken up with single-family homes.

So many homes!

Bethany is not incorporated and therefore doesn't have formal boundaries but the federal government considers it a census designated place with 31,000 residents. That's larger than Forest Grove. 

I work my way through residential streets to the next destination.

Somerset West

Somerset West is frankly an odd inclusion. This was a planned community built in the 1960's, part of the second wave of post-war suburb builds. Many many neighborhoods sprang up in the mid-century but a few (bafflingly) remain on official maps as "local community areas" with no rhyme or reason. I couldn't even figure out why it's called Somerset WEST (is there a Somerset East? Where?).

It is not a unique Census-designated place, either. The eastern half is part of Oak Hills CDP and the west is Rock Creek.

The home architecture is reminiscent of their era (single-family ranch houses). There are no shops or businesses (depending on if you count the golf course). When I passed through, the sidewalks were full of people enjoying an afternoon walk.

There are a few parks and most impressively, an expansive linear park (officially: John Marty Park) that definitely wasn't originally a maintenance road for the high-tension power lines that got beautified at some point.

I appreciated the safe multipurpose path that passed through the whole region, including the boardwalks that seemed promising for bird watching (I saw mallards and great blue heron at the time).

From there, I headed west to my final destination.

Oak Hills

This place was a discovery for me. When I set out to visit all of the places in the county, I resolved that many were going to be sprawling residential neighborhoods. I expected Oak Hills to be yet another one. I was wrong (kind of).

Yes, Oak Hills is yet another unincorporated planned community full of houses and nothing else in the northeast corner of the county, but here the houses are Historic.

Of the ~600 or so single family homes built in Oak Hills in the 1960s, 29 were designed by Robert Rummer, a famed architect of mid-century modern homes in the Pacific Northwest. 

The entire neighborhood is on the National Registrar of Historic Places. While you can look up the addresses of the Rummer houses, you don't need to. The Rummer houses have a distinct character and on my circuit around the neighborhood I was able to quickly identify many of the homes.