PORT ANGELES — The dilapidated longhouse in Lincoln Park needs to be torn down, Port Angeles city officials say, and the city is working with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe on plans to salvage the totem poles built as part of the structure.

The longhouse, once a home to both community and tribal events but now used by the city for storage, has fallen into disrepair and is no longer safe to occupy, city Recreational Services Manager Richard Bonine said at Thursday’s Parks, Recreation and Beautification Commission meeting.

Condemned in 1970s

Bonine said the city condemned the longhouse, built in the 1970s, at least 11 months ago and has since been developing a timeline with the tribe for taking the structure apart.

The longhouse now contains brick pavers left over from work on the off-leash dog park, Bonine said, and several of the building’s load-bearing supports have begun to rot away.

“A heavy, wet snow might cause the thing to cave in,” Bonine told the parks commissioners.

The city’s real estate committee, made up of City Council members and city staff, directed Bonine to contact the tribe about salvaging the logs comprising the structure and the 20 carved totem poles that line the exterior of the building.

Bonine said the tribe is the only entity the city has contacted so far about recovering the longhouse’s wood.

Tribal participation

Lower Elwha Klallam Chairwoman Frances Charles said the tribe is interested in salvaging the totem poles and wood used in the longhouse because numerous tribal members, some of whom have since died, were extensively involved in building the structure roughly 40 years ago.

“To the community, it’s really important that we get [the totem poles] back so we can restore them,” she said.

Charles said the city has expressed interest in starting to dismantle the longhouse by the beginning of next year, possible sooner, with the tribe currently reviewing the blueprints of the building to determine how it can be taken apart safely.

“The overall history will be preserved, and it would save tax dollars,” Bonine said at the Thursday meeting. “It’s a win-win situation.”

Parks Commission Chairwoman Penny Pittis said Saturday that the commission has historically supported the tribe coming to haul the wood away so the city does not have to pay for it.

“We thought it was a great idea,” Pittis said.

The city has done its best to maintain the longhouse, just as it does for the other structures in Lincoln Park, Pittis said, but the age and heavy deterioration of the longhouse’s structure have made it a lost cause.

“There’s no way we could have repaired it,” she said.

Once a meeting room

In a Friday interview, Bonine said people once could rent the longhouse for personal events such as birthday parties and family reunions.

That function has since shifted to the Leonard and Tea Beil Community Log Cabin a few hundred feet away.

That cabin was built in the 1990s by the Port Angeles Rotary Club from logs salvaged from a tavern that once stood on U.S. Highway 101 east of downtown Port Angeles.

Charles said the tribe also has used the longhouse structure, with its traditional dirt floor, for potlatches, tribal ceremonies and high school graduation celebrations.

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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.