Batchelder Properties, Bruce and Sally Batchelder, Brokers

What a “Book Emporium” Looks Like

Gold Beach Books

29707 Ellensburg Ave., Gold Beach, OR 97444

In in this community at the mouth of the Rogue River there is a building that brilliantly defines what a “book store” should be. Ted Watkins the founder was a collector of rare books, buying at estate sales and amassing semi-truck trailers full of books over the course of 40 + years. His passion to share led him to build Gold Beach Books in 2003, calling the 12,000 square foot two story structure “The Biscuit Building” after the enormous 500,000 acre fire in 2002 inland from the town.

Ted was a very successful “Philadelphia lawyer”, developing a computer program that enabled large financial institutions to administer national cases in various federal jurisdictions. The program became the foundation of his growing law firm, Becket & Watkins, from a handful of lawyers to hundreds, allowing him to “retire” at 38 to pursue his dream of opening a bookstore on the Oregon coast in the town he vacationed in so often when he lived in Portland, his home town.

His spirit is there still in the first editions by John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Lewis Stevenson and autographed volumes by many of the same. There are book signings, lectures by writers, art exhibits, and concerts that draw crowds from towns far, far away. On any given day the book inventory hovers around 60,000 volumes and for the first 13 years it is said that the store just broke even because Ted kept buying more and more books. Today however, under the dedicated supervision of manager Carolyn Trigueiro, modest profits are being realized and the sisters continue to visit and sift through Ted’s personal things in the upstairs rooms.

Ted Watkins 1957 – 2016

So if you wonder about taking a vacation on the Oregon Coast you might give Gold Beach a close look. There are many fine motels and VRBO accommodations there and endless day trips, by car or foot, you can make. Not to mention the famous mail boat adventures up the wild and scenic Rogue River. The visitors center is well worth the time too, and if you go in the right season, they seed the dunes with replicas of glass Japanese net floats which you can redeem for coupons at local businesses.

And of course, visit Gold Beach Books at all costs. It is open 7 days a week and staffed by people dedicated to Ted’s undertaking. Out of necessity it is for sale and should you know a book collector who would like to retire to the ocean . . .

Super Nice VRBO in Gold Beach, Oregon

We just came home from a couple days at a really sweet 3 bedroom VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) home just a few miles north of Gold Beach, Oregon and it was so good we want to share it. The home is on 5 private acres on a dead-end road near the hamlet of Ophir, OR. The location is on a cleared outcrop that juts out over the forest below to offer a 180 degree panoramic view of the ocean.

Sally and I have visited Gold Beach for years, it is a favorite of ours between Brookings, Port Orford, and Bandon each of which we’ve visited numerous times too. But Gold Beach has some special attractions, foremost being the jet mail boats that run up the Rogue River. Even more notable in my opinion though is Gold Beach Books, an incredible two-story emporium that may find its match somewhere else on the West Coast but I’m doubtful. Why in Gold Beach of all places? That’s another story, but for now if you read a lot or treasure rare books you absolutely must visit this phenomenon.

And if you are looking for a tranquil getaway in the meantime, here is the link to the owners’ VRBO listing: https://www.vrbo.com/652033, just copy and paste it into your browser.

Bruce

A Self-Driving Tesla

My first ride in a self-piloting car was . . . an education.

See the huge monitor on the right? My “driver” friend put in the destination address (to a rental I was showing him) and yup, it followed the route. By itself.

A few distractions of course. My friend apologized that his model did not have all the current software updates. For example, the car did not recognize the stop sign where Big Springs meets Highway 97.

He said the latest version understood red stop lights but not stop signs so if he had not tapped the brakes and taken manual control the car would have recognized the cross road but we would be halfway across it before it did.

In a sort of apologetic voice he said however that if an oncoming car crossed the line our car’s sensors would detect that and swerved. We passed a bicyclist though with less room than I would have made manually but he assured me the Tesla ‘saw’ him and would have taken evasive action if he had strayed into our lane. I’m sure he was right.

12 hour range on the battery which takes about 45 minutes to charge from dead empty (we’ll have to come up with another term for that for electrics). He has to pay for recharging but at home he plugs it in every night and that it takes about as much energy as a crock pot.

Still.

Emergency Evacuation Support Plan

We residents in Lake Shastina just received this invaluable notice and it is well worth reading. Kind of like Neighborhood Watch, it is a smart thing to do and benefits everyone.

Watch Out For These Guys

I just got a call from a client who’d gotten a text message from somebody in New York inviting him to visit one of our rental listings. If he liked it he was supposed to wire the $1,000 security deposit and the $1,000 first month’s rent.

The problem was that it wasn’t the owner who was texting.

This has happened before and with other property managers’ listings. Crooks pick up the property photo and details through Zillow, Trulia, or even by searching property managers. And it looks very legitimate.

Then they use online advertising or even random phone calling to trap someone looking to rent a home.

Watch for unsolicited messages that offer something that seems to be too good to be true (we all know the saying . . . “If it looks too good . . . “). The listing this individual responded to was $1,650 per month, not $1,000 for example.

Bad grammar, asking for bank account info or your SSN. All red flags.

Stick with people you know.

A Disturbing Statistic

May 18, 2018

The United Way’s ALICE project (Asset Limited, Incom Constrained, Employed) has just reported that 43% of American households do not earn enough to cover basic expenses such as food and housing and, in the same breath, that the unemployment rate has fallen below 4% for the first time since 2000.

Our own state of California (and only two others in the country) has the largest share of struggling families at 49%. With a national average of 66% of all jobs paying less than $20 an hour, perhaps this all is no surprise but it’s clearly putting a smack on the housing market and why so many are renting instead of buying a home.