Home	Our History	Our Artists	Calendar		Links	Contact Us	About Us
					Weddings/Events

The Hukari family has been in the orchard industry in Hood River for 4 generations. Camille’s great-grandfather, JR Nunamaker, moved to Hood River in 1905 from Morrow County in Oregon. Her great-grandparents on her father’s side, Alex and Amanda Hukari, born in Finland, also moved to Hood River in 1905. Both sets of great-grandparents became orchardists upon their arrival in Hood River.
 
Both the Hukaris and the Nunamakers have been active in the fruit industry in Hood River and Oregon. Arvo Hukari (Camille’s grandfather), helped found the Apple Grower’s Association (now Diamond Fruit) and served as AGA’s foreign market sales representative for many years. Don Nunamaker (Camille’s grandfather) served on the Board of Directors of AGA. Her father, Ross, served as the President of the Oregon Horticultural Society in 1958 and was named as the Hood River Young Farmer of the Year in 1959. Camille served as the first female member and Chair of the Board of the Hood River Grower Shipper Association and continues to be active in the industry today. Camille has been actively farming since 1983. Her husband, Jerry, joined the farm in 1998.
 
Much of the fruit and all of the flowers offered for sale at The Gorge White House are from our fields. The farming operation at The Gorge White House consists of Bartlett, Golden Bosc and Stark Crimson Pears, with a few heirloom apple varieties. Spring flower bulbs of daffodils, tulips, gladiolas and fragrant lilies bloom April through June. Seeded flowers such as zinnias and sunflowers begin in July and our spectacular dahlias finish the season through first frost – usually in October. We grow 5 varieties of blueberries, 3 varieties of strawberries and 3 varieties of table grapes.




The Gorge White House was built in 1910 by M. M. (Martin Michael) Hill, formerly of Waterloo, Iowa. M. M. Hill was a progressive farmer who assisted in organizing and implementing trends significant to the fruit industry in the Hood River Valley. M. M.  Hill was born on September 14, 1869 in Waterloo, Iowa. He married Carrie B. Smith in 1892. He left his wife with relatives in Long Beach, California and went north to Oregon. According to “Pine Grove Memories” by Patricia Krussow, M. M.

Hill came to Hood River and found a 50 acre piece of land he wanted. He located the owner, Mr. Johnson, a street car conductor in Portland, and rode that streetcar until Mr. Johnson agreed to sell the property to him. He bought the land, set up camp and began building a small house, not telling his wife of what he had done. When she did come north, he told her he had bought the property and if she would stay, he would build her the finest house in the valley. Mrs. Hill was from a very wealthy mid-western family and cried when her husband gave her the news of his land purchase, as to her, the Hood River Valley was an uncivilized, barbaric area, void of expected comforts. Because of his pledge to build her this house, she agreed to stay. In 1910 the M. M.

Hill House was completed, making good on his promise to his wife.
 
The Gorge White House remained in the Hill family until his daughter, Ruth Hill Beacon sold the house and orchard in 1947 to Don and Aileen Nunamaker, Camille Hukari’s grandparents. Camille’s parents, Ross and Daphne (Nunamaker) Hukari purchased the home in 1950. Camille grew up in The Gorge White House and continues to own it today.

The Gorge White House is an excellent intact example of a Dutch Colonial Revival House in a rural setting in the Hood River Valley. The Colonial Revival Style was popular from 1890 through 1915 and was an effort to establish a uniquely American style based on Colonial architecture of the 1700s. The Gorge White House has many of the characteristic elements of this style including the gambrel roof, classic entablature, oval windows with keystones, fanlights (lunettes) attic windows, transoms, dentils at the cornice, balconies, screened sun porch, tripartite windows with decorative leaded beveled glass, fluted round porch columns, union jack railings, arched window with keystone in the west facing gable and side lights framing the doors. The Gorge White House also has the classic style elements of wood frame construction with thin horizontal cedar siding, dentil moldings, fluted columns, pilasters, leaded glass windows, porches, balconies, and a central prominent entrance (porte-cochere).

Both the exterior and interior of the house are intact, with minor alterations. The interior main salon has original quarter-sawn white oak columns, coffered ceilings, floors, staircase, newel posts, doors, windows, moldings and baseboards are original in finish, patina and materials. The first floor of the home is now open to the public as The Gorge White House.

Situated in a beautiful 1910 Dutch Colonial home in the heart of the Hood River Valley, The Gorge White House has been a landmark on Highway 35, the Mount Hood Scenic Byway, for nearly 100 years. For the first time in its history, the home is open to the public as a retail establishment.

The Gorge White House is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Camille Hukari and Jerry Tausend. The Gorge White House was Camille’s family home for sixty years and she has painstakingly restored it and the gardens to showcase this beautiful home and share it with the public. The Gorge White House earned a listing on the National Registry of Historic Places on July 17, 2007!