The march of monster homes across your favorite Western landscapes got you down? Take heart: At the end of July, the Friends of the Columbia Gorge finished dismantling and recycling “nail by nail, shingle by shingle‚” a 5,500-square-foot house overlooking the Columbia River from Cape Horn on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. The nonprofit bought the house — the only one built in a 16-lot subdivision platted before the creation of the scenic area in the 1980s — for $1.5 million in 2006. The deconstruction is one of the last steps in a 25-year effort to transfer those lots and more than 50 others on Cape Horn to the Forest Service, which now holds 1,000 acres surrounding the homesite.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Snapshot.

