Mystery Location 2: May 15, 2016

"Beaver" makes me think of the Pacific Northwest, but that is just a guess. Could mean anything really.

I think I have it. It's the Captain George Conrad Flavel House, located at 627 15th Street in Astoria, Oregon. Astoria is named after American investor John Jacob Astor, who owned a fur company. Naturally, someone who is so fond of fur would name one of the supply ships in his fleet the "Beaver", though the clue can also relate to The Beaver Club, a gentleman's dining club founded in 1785 by fur-trading barons, of which he was a member. John Jacob Astor IV, an heir to John Jacob Astor, was one of the missing after the Titanic struck, as he was a passenger (the wealthiest aboard). His body was eventually recovered a few days later by the CS Mackay-Bennett, a ship used for the difficult task of recovering bodies that were floating in the North Atlantic, and which also picked up the unclaimed corpse of a child, later buried in a casket paid for by the crew.

The Flavel House was lived in by Harry M. Flavel, son of Captain George Conrad Flavel. He lived there with his wife and children. The younger of the children, Harry S., had a violent temper and was nicknamed “Hatchet Harry” after he chopped up the house’s bannister with a hatchet while his mother was locked in her bedroom.  The family lived as recluses in the community and became hoarders. In 1983, Harry got into a scuffle with a driver when he was walking his dog, which ended in him stabbing the man. After a number of appeals, Harry was on the run for failing to appear in court. This made him a fugitive from justice. After he served his sentence, the family disappeared. The home remained uninhabited, boarded up and dilapidated for over twenty years until the city of Astoria took control of the property, acting under a derelict-buildings ordinance passed in 2011. One of the pictures I am attaching will show the extent of their hoarding. Incidentally, it was thanks to the stacked magazines and newspapers from their hoarding that they say the house suffered minimal damage to the wooden structure as the paper absorbed water from leaks.

Thanks! I have to admit that I was stuck on the unclaimed corpse part especially and could not find the connection. It's an interesting house, and after researching him and the home, I found out that the lovely Queen Anne home featured in the movie "The Goonies", also in Oregon, belonged to him as well (it is now a museum). He also had a third home, which was a lot smaller and simpler in its look than the other two. I was glad to see that a lumber company owner purchased it, seems like a great match for him.