Hydro Hogs

The Marquez family lives high in the Northwest Portland hills. How high? Drive up Skyline Boulevard, past the Pittock Mansion, past countless gated communities and winding driveways. Keep driving. When your ears pop from the altitude, you’re halfway through the 9-mile drive from Hector Marquez’s tile showroom in the central eastside.

Marquez’s 11,000-square-foot home isn’t visible from its steel electronic gate on Northwest Wind Ridge Drive. It sits on 9.74 acres of towering evergreens and sculpted hedges—with a water tower next door. (It’s not theirs.)

Hector Marquez is president of the flooring-store chain Oregon Tile & Marble. He and his wife, Viviana, own at least six property-management companies in three states.

They finished sixth in WW’s 2007 list of top water users. Back then, they blamed it on the pool. This time, they declined to comment.

How much water did they use? Enough to fill a standard-sized bathtub 31,010 times.
CLAIRE HOLLEY.

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#12

Homeowner: Joshua and Kristine Collins 
Water used: 746,504 gallons 
Water bill: $4,777

The Collins family moved to Dunthorpe in 2010 after Josh Collins, a former equity fund manager and captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, was named president and later CEO of Milwaukie-based Blount International, the world’s largest maker of saw chains. Kristine Collins is a former lawyer with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

They paid $2.8 million for a 6,770-square-foot house on 1.6 acres that is tucked away on a winding private lane off Southwest Military Road. 

Kristine Collins says the property suffered a water leak last summer, which they fixed—but it increased their quarterly bill 30 times. “You can imagine the heart attack I had when it came in,” she says.”I’m just a really average user of water, with one exception.” Shortly before press deadlines, the Palatine Hill Water District confirmed the Collins family reported a leak last November, and paid the full bill. So take their water use with a grain of salt. 

How much water did they use? Enough to fill 3,176 water beds. HART HORNOR.

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#11

Homeowner: Brian Anderson 
Water used: 765,952 gallons 
Water bill: $3,087

Brian Anderson’s red brick home in North Portland’s Overlook neighborhood is up for grabs—$1.65 million will get you the only water-hogging home east of the Willamette River.

The 4,823 square-foot house on the busy corner of North Willamette Boulevard and Fowler Avenue, perched above Swan Island, has a sweeping view of the West Hills and Forest Park. But it’s the backyard that’s special.

Anderson’s real-estate agent recently held an open house, allowing for a tour of the private yard. Bubbling fountains and a waterfall feature behind the pool help muffle some of the traffic noise. The property—nearly one-third of an acre—is lush, and none of the plants looks thirsty even in the July heat.

Anderson is the chief marketing officer of Command Management Services, a logistics company owned by his mother, Monica Anderson. He tells WW he thinks the heavy water use is due to a faulty pool lining. He’s had to drain and refill the pool twice in the past year. “And it’s a good-sized pool,” he says.

He also believes his effort to keep his grass green might be part of the issue—but he says his water features are innocent. “I have a well-manicured lawn,” he says. “I have fountains, I have waterfalls. But those are all circulatory. I know exactly what it was. It was the pool.”

How much water did he use? Enough to fill nearly 25 semitrailers. EMILY VOLPERT.

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#10

Homeowner: Bill and Gail McCormick 
Water used: 816,816 gallons 
Water bill: $5,207

For more than three decades, Bill McCormick was the boisterous fishmonger at the helm of McCormick & Schmick’s, the Portland-based seafood chain serving surf ’n’ turf in 23 states. He served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, made unsuccessful bids for the Portland City Council and the Oregon House, and ran the fundraising machine for socially moderate Republicans like former U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

He sold McCormick & Schmick’s to a Texas casino tycoon in 2011, after the chain went public and sank on the stock market.

His $1.4 million house sits on the west bank of the Willamette River, 2 miles upstream from the Sellwood Bridge. It has cedar-plank siding, a multitiered yard, and mounted carvings featuring Northwest tribal drawings of fish.

Gail McCormick declined to comment to WW, saying she and Bill were ill. No one answered the door.

How much water did they use? Enough to boil 612,612 lobsters. CLAIRE HOLLEY.

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#9

Homeowner: Paul Brenneke 
Water used: 863,940 gallons 
Water bill: $5,376

Paul Brenneke makes no apologies.

“Are you suggesting I should have a brown yard?” the real-estate developer asks. “It’s a 2-acre lot with landscaping. I don’t think that makes me a bad guy.”

Brenneke is used to controversy. In 2001, he opened the $23 million Avalon Hotel & Spa in Johns Landing. Within two years, he was battling investors for control of the struggling resort, which is now closed. He returned to an executive role at Guardian Real Estate Services, the property-management company founded by his father, Barry.

(Correction: Due to an editor's error, this article incorrectly stated that Paul Brenneke is an executive at his father’s company, Guardian Real Estate Services. In fact, he founded another Portland real-estate company, also named Guardian. The Avalon Hotel & Spa, which Brenneke built, was sold and operates as River’s Edge Hotel & Spa.)

Brenneke’s Dunthorpe home on Southwest Summerville Avenue is behind a brick wall. Brenneke says the grass requires care.

“We water our yard so it looks decent,” he says. “If you don’t water, it will kill it, and then you have to replant it, which uses more water. You’re vilifying people with big houses.”

How much water did he use? Enough to provide drinking water to 45 elephants for a year. ANTHONY MACUK.

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#8

Homeowner: Lewis Scott 
Water used: 899,844 gallons 
Water bill: $4,515

Lewis Scott, a retired lawyer from the Lane Powell firm, doesn’t live in the water-sucking house on Southwest Humphrey Boulevard that puts him on this year’s list—he lives in a different home in Dunthorpe. But he owns the Southwest Hills home and the woody 6.9 acres around it, and the water bill goes to him.

Scott also made the Hydro Hogs list in 2001 and 2006. Records show he’s still a consistently high water user—on average, 711,348 gallons a year since 2012.

He owns four houses in a row along Humphrey, but only one is the sinkhole for all that water. The yard and relatively modest house—2,760 square feet—sit behind a 6-foot hedge that was once the source of a bitter dispute between Scott and his neighbors, who complained it violated city code. When the city tried to get him to cut it down, according to a 1989 Oregonian story, he went to the Oregon Supreme Court to fight back. He also retaliated by submitting complaints about 316 other West Hills homes with high hedges.

As he has in past reports, Scott declined to talk to WW.

How much water did he use? It would flood the ground floor of the Multnomah County Courthouse with 3 feet of water. EMILY VOLPERT.

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#7

Homeowner: Thomas and Barbara Rosenbaum
Water used: 922,284 gallons 
Water bill: $4,871

In 2013, when last we checked in with the Rosenbaums, they had just installed terraced gardens behind their $2.6 million, Spanish-style mansion along Northwest Cumberland Road. Their water use had nearly quadrupled as a result. Thomas Rosenbaum, a neurosurgeon at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, told WW then that the recently planted gardens on the half-acre lot were thirsty and needed lots of irrigation.

This year, Rosenbaum declined to be interviewed, but records show the Rosenbaums have consistently put a heavy demand on the city’s water. No other home in Portland has used more water in the past three years than the Rosenbaums’—2.5 million gallons.

What little front lawn the Rosenbaums have encompasses a strip of healthy grass that includes a TriMet stop for the 18 bus. During our visit to the house, a reporter leaned his bicycle against the bus-stop sign. A woman driving a Land Rover exited the driveway, rolled down her window and yelled, “Mind taking your bike off our lawn?”

How much water did they use? Enough to cover a half-acre with 5½ feet of water.  HART HORNOR.

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#6

Homeowner: Ralph R. Shaw 
Water used: 926,024 gallons 
Water bill: $4,593

Ralph Shaw’s 6,000-square-foot house looks like a miniature Timberline Lodge. Two blocks from Council Crest Park, on Southwest Brentwood Drive, his $2.4 million property features flower beds, a swimming pool and more than a half-acre of lawn.

Shaw is one of Oregon’s original venture capitalists, investing early in Costco, Integra Telecom and Will Vinton Studios. He was a longtime Schnitzer Steel board member, and in 2001, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber put Shaw on a committee to pump up the state economy and attract tourists.

That same year, Shaw was included in WW’s first list of Hydro Hogs. He finished 12th by using 712,844 gallons. He says he had “no idea” his water use had gone up since then. “There must be a leak somewhere,” he says.

How much water did he use? Enough to fill the Knott’s Berry Farm log flume 38 times. CLAIRE HOLLEY.

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#5

Homeowner: Stephen and Jean Roth
Water used: 969,408 gallons 
Water bill: $6,162

Stephen Roth deals in big properties.

The Dunthorpe native founded and runs real-estate investment funds in Paris, Tokyo and China—where his assets include sprawling Shanghai office parks and Beijing towers that look like the Titanic jutting out of the North Atlantic. That company—Kailong REI Project Investment Consultancy Ltd. Shanghai—finished raising $238 million in May.

Roth advises Harvard’s real-estate program and, closer to home, squabbled with business partners for years over unsuccessful efforts to revamp a luxury ranch in Sun Valley, Idaho.

His $2.1 million Dunthorpe home sits behind thick foliage on 1.3 acres along Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard. In the backyard, aerial photos show, a pathway winds from the swimming-pool deck through a large garden.

Roth says the grounds had a buried leak. “It took a long time to diagnose and fix,” he says. “I don’t have anything else to add.”

How much water did they use? Enough to properly hydrate more
than 1.9 million people for a day. EMILY VOLPERT.

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#4

Homeowner: Barbara Beale
Water used: 1,004,564 gallons 
Water bill: $6,386

Barbara Beale says her 30-year-old sprinkler system is falling apart. “It’s infuriating,” she says, “but it’s nothing I can do anything about.”

Beale’s home, worth $2.7 million, sits on 2.6 acres that border Lewis & Clark College. She says she needs the sprinkler system to prevent forest fires. “Kids are coming through the property all the time, looking for a quiet place to look into each other’s eyes,” she says. She’s worried one of their cigarettes will set a fire.

Beale is the daughter of Robert Stevens Miller, who headed what became Lewis & Clark Law School, and widow of William Beale, who worked in the timber industry. She has produced several off-Broadway and London theater shows.

She says she’ll occasionally see a wet spot on her property from her balcony, or hear about a leak from a neighbor. But more often, she realizes she has a leak when she reads her water bill. (Palatine Hill Water District says it is aware of multiple leaks on Beale’s property.) It’s hard to monitor her sprinklers, she says, because her land is on a steep slope.

“I attempt to be conservative in all things, so I certainly don’t waste water,” she says. But she isn’t worried about Portland’s water drying up. “I’ve lived long enough to see the cycles of hot and cold repeat on and on,” she says. “We may be in a bit of warm weather, but it’s not going to kill us all.”

How much water did she use? Enough to fill 64,810 beer kegs. HART HORNOR.

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#3

Homeowner: Jordan Schnitzer 
Water used: 1,153,416 gallons 
Water bill: $5,679

The heir to the Schnitzer real-estate fortune returns to the Hydro Hogs list after a long absence. He made the list four times between 2001 and 2007—including a 2 million-gallon drink in 2003. All of those appearances took place when he lived on Southwest Hessler Drive, just below Southwest Fairmount Boulevard. That home, on 1.4 acres, now belongs to his ex-wife.

This year, Schnitzer made the list with his $4.2 million home on Southwest Humphrey Boulevard, 1.4 miles west of where his street connects with Southwest Vista Avenue.

The 11,000-square-foot Georgian Colonial house, sitting on 5.9 acres behind a security gate, has six full and three half bathrooms, a pool and a tennis court. Known as Blueberry Hill, the property is on the National Register of Historic Places and previously belonged to Jordan Schnitzer’s uncle, steel company executive Leonard Schnitzer.

As he has in past Hydro Hog stories, Jordan Schnitzer says his property recently suffered a leak.

“Probably 40 percent of the sprinkler lines in Portland leak,” Schnitzer says. “There is a huge amount of loss that you don’t know about because it’s underground. I haven’t gotten the bill yet. Usually what happens is that you get the bill and there’s a bar graph that shows that it’s really high in a certain month. Whenever I get this bill, I’ll send you the next bill. And the bill after that. And it should be going down.”

Schnitzer varies between complaining about WW’s reporting on his water use and being a good sport about it.

He griped that he wouldn’t look so bad if WW checked all of Multnomah County, not just the city. “WW always tries to embarrass me for how much water I use,” he says. “All of the people in the county who have bigger properties, you don’t get their bills. So that’s always a fascinating situation.”

Yet he also proudly pointed to another enterprise that could have added to his water use. Schnitzer says his 16-year-old daughter asked to put in a “very big vegetable garden” to grow healthy foods to give to the homeless. He says it might be a reason that they used so much water.

“Those are some pretty expensive vegetables,” Schnitzer says. “I told my daughter, ‘I should just take them all out to dinner.’”

How much water did he use? You could flush a low-flow toilet 720,885 times. EMILY VOLPERT.

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#2

Homeowner: John R. Campbell 
Water used: 1,189,320 gallons 
Water bill: $7,350

John Campbell was the first pediatric surgeon in Oregon. He trained with former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and arrived in 1967 at the medical school now known as Oregon Health & Science University. He campaigned to add a new building at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at OHSU, and was the first surgeon-in-chief when it opened in 1998.

Campbell retired from OHSU in 2000, telling a university interviewer he would spend time hunting and fishing with his son.

His home on Southwest Military Lane in Dunthorpe is obscured by a tall hedge. Aerial photos show a swimming pool and a grassy lawn stretching across a large portion of the half-acre property.

Campbell did not respond to repeated requests for comment from WW. When a reporter knocked on the door, a woman answered through a nearby window. She said she didn’t know anything about the water use. Then she shut and locked the window.

How much water did he use? In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Scotty beams up 300 tons of water to fill the tank for the two humpback whales that Kirk needs to rescue in order to save the future. With Campbell’s water supply, Scotty could save those whales—plus 29 more. ANTHONY MACUK.

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#1

Homeowner: Henry Hillman Jr. 
Water used: 1,557,336 gallons 
Water bill: $9,832

Hillman, who makes his Hydro Hogs premiere at the No. 1 spot, may have the most fascinating backstory of any of this year’s big gulpers.

He owns a robotics company and once owned Avia, a shoe company he later sold to Reebok. The Henry Lea Hillman Jr. Foundation, dedicated to philanthropy in the Portland area, gives annually to scores of local organizations and doled out $513,000 last year. He’s also a prominent arts patron and a well-established artist himself, a painter better known for his cast glass sculptures.

Hillman’s money is inherited from a Pittsburgh family of industrialists. His father, Henry Sr., whose fortune Forbes magazine says is worth $2.5 billion, later diversified into real estate and investment banking. Henry Jr. never went for the corporate life, moving to Portland in 1975, and learning how to blow glass before opening his own studio.

Hillman’s Dunthorpe home is on a secluded driveway off Southwest Military Road. He paid $6.5 million for the 6,700-square-foot house in 2009. The 4.2-acre lot includes a pool, tennis court, English garden and lots and lots of lawn.

Hillman doesn’t have any concerns about his water usage, saying you need to consider the acreage of his property, not just the amount of gallons he consumed. “My using water doesn’t impact the drought,” Hillman says. “It’s like eating everything on your plate. It doesn’t help the starving children in Africa to not finish what is on your plate.”

How much water did he use?  You could run a dishwasher 311,467 times. EMILY VOLPERT.