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ADDRESS: 3206 SE Tolman St.
YEAR BUILT: 1932
SQUARE FOOTAGE: 2,249
MARKET VALUE: $875,000
OWNER: Shirley Voelker
HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: More than 20 years, neighbors estimate.
WHY IT’S EMPTY: Indecision and injuries
In the Eastmoreland neighborhood, where homes regularly sell for more than $1 million, one home has stood incongruously empty for perhaps as long as 27 years.
The property in question is a white, two-story Tudor-style home just off Reed College Place, the leafy, double-laned thoroughfare that provides a dramatic entrance to the state’s most selective private college.
Compared to most homes nearby, 3206 SE Tolman looks a little rough: Parts of the fence have fallen down, the paint is flaking off in many spots, and the shingles on the roof look like antiques.
Yet records show that owner Shirley Voelker always pays her property taxes on time and in full—$11,447 this year.
Shaun Jarvis, who along with his wife bought the house next door in 2010, says he doesn’t think Voelker ever occupied the home after buying it in 1996.
“There have been squatters in it at times,” Jarvis says. “My wife kicked them out. She said, ‘You can’t squat in this lady’s house.’”
At one point, Jarvis says, Voelker bought new top-of-the-line appliances for the home but never moved in. “We and others in the neighborhood have tried to buy it just to get people to live in it,” Jarvis says.
He has a key to the property and keeps an eye on it for Voelker, who has maintained the plantings and kept the yard trimmed (although city records show three complaints since 2012, including one that says “whenever the owner receives a city complaint, she and her relatives power wash and weed, ‘in preparation for sale,” but no ‘for sale’ sign ever appears”).
Another neighbor, Rosalie McDougall, says she speaks to Voelker a couple of times a year. McDougall recalls asking Voelker to at least put a light on her front porch so children wouldn’t be scared when they walked past the dark home. McDougall says Voelker and her daughter are pleasant but somewhat mysterious.
Voelker did not respond to requests for comment, but court records shed some light on her situation. In separate incidents in 1983 and 1984, one of Voelker’s daughters suffered injuries in class and during volleyball practice at a Colorado middle school. The Voelker family sued the school district for negligence, and while the case slowly worked its way to the Colorado Supreme Court, they moved to Oregon to be close to a leading medical specialist.
In 1996, records show, the Voelkers bought the Tolman Street home but have instead lived at various other Portland addresses since. In 2016, other court records show, Voelker, now 79, was hurt in a fall at a local restaurant.
“Right after we met, Shirley had broken her hip,” McDougall says. “They say, ‘We plan to move in,’ but then they have some reason not to do it.”
Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.