When I got the call from Sally Ganong urging me to attend the annual reunion block party for the Fentonwood community, I grabbed Elsbeth and away we went.

After all, we were once residents in this cluster of dramatically different homes in the Shorewood area. We were so stunned by this group of 19 homes designed by West Seattle's Bob Norsen we bought one instantly. This was in 1962 and to this day they are the most uniquely designed homes I have ever seen. This clever man was way ahead of his time. He pioneered epoxy resin entries and full size bathtubs. The wallboard had no moldings top or bottom to paint and the features like free form steel fireplaces and the hanging lamps (made by his wife) are still unique 45 years later.

Our Fentonwood house is where I was doing some landscaping and had to cut down a thorny tree and stick it in the bed of my pick up truck. I took it to the South Park transfer station and backed into a space above a 14-foot pit where a huge bulldozer was pushing tons of crud out of the pit into a giant truck to be hauled away. I climbed up onto the pickup bed, tugged and tugged to get the stubborn thorny tree to dislodge. All at once it came loose and I went crashing headlong in a somersault into the pit.

Luckily somebody had just dumped a huge pile of leaves and I landed right in the middle. I was surrounded with nasty detritus like jagged 2 by 4s and broken toilets and never got a scratch.

Anyway Elsbeth and I were invited to a block party recently and after we had our fill of spaghetti (made by realtor Bob Del Bianca) and other goodies we had the group picture, shown here, taken.

Even Bob Norsen and his wife Donna came and were surrounded by a whole gang of Fentonwood house worshipers.

Jerry may be reached at publisher@robinsonnews.com