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Ursula K. Le Guin cemented her place in history long ago. But now the literary titan and godmother of speculative fiction’s Portland home will also be recognized in posterity.
Le Guin’s longtime residence in the Willamette Heights neighborhood has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation nominated her home in February for the property’s “national significance in the areas of literature and women’s social history.”
The National Park Service, which oversees the National Register, announced today that it had accepted the nomination. It joins other registered historic sites in Portland such as the Burnside Bridge and Oaks Park carousel as local architectural and cultural landmarks with state and communal significance.
Le Guin lived in the house on Northwest Thurman Street at the base of Forest Park from 1960 to her death in 2018. During that time, she racked up a staggering number of accolades, including five Hugo and five Nebula Awards as well as a National Book Award. Some of her most notable works—A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and The Dispossessed (1974), to name a few—were penned in the home’s second floor writing room overlooking Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and a towering California redwood.
In 2024, Le Guin’s estate donated the house to the local nonprofit Literary Arts, which is in the process of converting it into the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency.
