Welches cabin marks 90 years of family history in the Hoodland forest

By Justin Andress, The Mountain Times

As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary in July, one Welches cabin will celebrate 90 years of connection to the Hoodland forest in the form of a family home nestled securely in the heart of the forest.

Four of the cabin’s current owners — siblings Dave and Linda Atiyeh (ah-TEE-yub) and their respective spouses Darlene and Rainse — are seated around the family dining room table inside the historic cabin. They’re a friendly group who are eager to point to any one of the numerous historical family photographs that line the wood-paneled walls.

The entire house is a family heirloom. Ownership has been passed down through three generations. The current owners consist of a litany of cousins spread across the country. Quality-of-life improvements have been made over the years, but there’s been a clear effort to preserve the charm that drew in the cabin’s original owners, George and Linda Atiyeh.

The couple began summering in the cabin in the early 1930s. As Linda explains, her grandmother “was born in Beirut, Lebanon … and her family had a summer home in a little town called Aley, up in the mountains, and they would go there to be cooler in the summertime.”

At the time, Timberline Lodge was still under construction, and Highway 26 was in the distant future, but the promise of Mount Hood’s natural splendor was already drawing attention. In the mid-1900s, the Forest Service spent considerable effort encouraging people to purchase land.

As Darlene explains, “the Forest Service wanted these people to be stewards of the land. They wanted these cabins up here … to kind of take care of the land and oversee things.”

So, propelled by fond childhood memories and a mandate from the nation, George and Linda Atiyeh set up shop in Welches with their three boys, Vic, Ed, and Richard. During their summertime stretches at the cabin, George Atiyeh still worked weeks at the (now) world-famous Atiyeh Bros., a handmade rug business operating in Portland since 1900. He didn’t work alone, either.

“Dad once told me that [George] would take one of them back to Portland for the week, and they’d work with him at the store,” says Linda. “Then the next week, he’d come out and take another son back to town.”

Work didn’t stop for the kids who stayed at the cabin. David Atiyeh says his father and uncles were put to work on the land. “All this loose rock was apparently their summer job. And they would come up for the whole summer. In other words, they made them work. Which, for three teenage boys, was probably good.”

It must have had some impact, because as the boys grew to adulthood, they began to make an impression on the surrounding area. In 1979, the youngest son, Victor, was elected governor of Oregon. In 1982, he won reelection by the largest margin in three decades. He left office in 1987 after serving two terms. He remains the last-elected Republican governor in Oregon.

“Vic was an avid fisherman,” says Dave. “His one relaxing hobby while he was governor was to continue fishing.”

When the time came for the Atiyeh brothers to inherit the cabin, they were happy to continue the tradition. One practice did stop: none of them were enlisted to work. They were set free to explore the nearby woods, while the adults continued to make improvements to the family home.

When Dave and Linda were children, Road 9 was still “the highway,” and the modern conveniences of Welches weren’t even a glimmer in a property developer’s eye.

“For a long time,” says Linda, “Rhododendron was the place to go because there was a pretty good-sized store, and we’d walk up there to buy candy.”

Dave picks up the conversation, adding, “We would just come up and play badminton, and, you know, just have fun. But I don’t remember ever taking a hike. All [three brothers] liked to golf.”

As the fifth generation of Atiyehs ventures up to the cabin summer after summer, the family connection to the land remains strong. “There’s a lot of ‘mountain house’ lore in the stories we pass down,” says Linda. “And it becomes more precious to the kids, and now the grandkids, as they hear these stories and create stories of their own.”