About Just Portland

Why this site exists

I came to Portland the way I come to most places: through its houses. For a city so often described by its rain, its coffee and its bridges, Portland has one of the most interesting architectural stories in the West, and it deserves to be told plainly.

In the 1930s John Yeon, still in his twenties, designed the Watzek House in the West Hills: a one-level wood house with low gable roofs reaching past the walls to keep the rain off its glass, and rooms lined up on Mount Hood. When the Museum of Modern Art published it, it gave Yeon a national reputation, and it helped define what became known as Northwest Regional style. It is now a National Historic Landmark.

Pietro Belluschi was working the same vein. He designed the Portland Art Museum in 1931 and 1932, built a run of wood houses and churches from the late 1930s through the 1940s that grew out of their sites and their weather, and completed the Equitable Building downtown in 1948, the first major glass-skinned modernist office building finished in the country after World War II.

Then there are the streets everybody else lives on: the Craftsman bungalows and foursquares the streetcars carried across the river, the diagonal plan of Ladd’s Addition, platted in 1891, and the Irvington Historic District, listed on the National Register in 2010. Just Portland is where I keep that record, so that anyone thinking about a move here already knows the story.

Who I am

I’m Debbie Pisaro, a California real estate agent. I’ve spent 24 years helping people buy and sell homes in California, and I’ve been recognized as an Inman Luxury Leader. My office is in Los Angeles.

I founded Coastline 840, named for the 840 miles of California coastline. Architecture is what keeps me in love with this work, and it’s what pulls me north to Portland: Yeon and Belluschi, the bungalow streets, the old houses people here have taken such good care of.

My California architectural homes practice, bio and full contact details are at debbiepisaro.com/about.

How the referral works

• You call or email me. Tell me whether you’re moving to Portland or leaving it, which part of the city you’re thinking about, and your timing.
• I connect you with a licensed Oregon broker who knows that neighborhood. They work with you directly from there.
• There’s no cost to you for the introduction. If you go on to work with that broker, they may pay a referral fee, which goes through my California broker, Side, Inc.
• The California side is mine. If you’re selling in California to move to Portland, or leaving Portland for California, I can represent you on the California end myself.

What you’ll find here

• Neighborhood guides. The character, streets, architecture and history of Portland’s neighborhoods. See Neighborhoods.
• Architecture and history. Specific houses, specific architects, specific eras, from the streetcar bungalow to Northwest Regional modernism. See Field Notes.
• Understanding Portland homes. General background on historic districts, older houses and how buying and selling work in Oregon, written as information, not as a service. See Portland Real Estate, Sell and Market.
• Local places. The parks, landmarks and places that make the city what it is. See Places and the Calendar.
• Practical resources. City and county contacts and services in one place. See Portland 411.
• People. Profiles of the people who make Portland what it is. See Faces of Portland.