Clark County history: John Roffler came from humble beginning to build the Pittock-Leadbetter House

In 1889, a Minnesota widow, Katharina Roffler, and her four children moved into a small homesteader’s cabin near the split at La Camas and Fern roads, where they lived until 1895. From that tiny home came the boy who would someday build the grandest homes in Camas.

It’s unclear when John Roffler became interested in homebuilding, but in 1902, he was employed to help build a grand house near Lacamas Lake commissioned by Oregonian Publisher (and Camas founder) Henry Pittock. Pittock built the house, which became known as the Pittock-Leadbetter House, for his business partner and son-in-law Frederick Leadbetter, whom his daughter Caroline married in 1894.

It is clear John Roffler learned the building trade while working on the Leadbetter home. He repurposed the details he learned working on Pittock’s spaciously grand Queen Anne when he started his homebuilding business. The beveled glass, whimsical details, wide verandas and portico entrances would become his trademarks.

In 1905, Roffler married Ethel Barlow. The following year, Camas was incorporated, and he built his first house, John Roffler I, at Northeast 15th and Everett streets. Ethel gave birth to a daughter, Irene, in that home two years later. He built John Roffler II, a two-story, two-bedroom house at First Avenue and Ione Street. The family moved there in 1911. He also built homes for his mother and his brother, Ulrich.

John’s sister Ursula married a Camas pioneer, general store owner and paper mill worker, Charles Farrell, about 1900. Her husband would be a future mayor of Camas. According to family reports, Ursula brought John a postcard with a picture of a grand elegant house. She wanted him to re-create that house for her. In 1915, he built what the people of Camas still consider the most beautiful house in town, the Charles Farrell House.

When Charles Farrell’s father needed a home, John built him a two-story, incorporating his hallmarks, a dormer and a portico.

With the birth of John and Ethel’s son, Harold, the Rofflers needed a third home. So in 1917 he built one along the Washougal River, appropriately called Roffler’s Roost because it sits on stilts and hangs over the embankment sloping to the river. The screened porch overlooks the river, and stairs descend to a boat launch.

Later, John built Roffler House IV in the Oak Park neighborhood, which is noticeably similar to the Charles Farrell House, but with a framing difference. He used rough-cast concrete blocks rather than a wooden frame.

Despite his building expertise, Roffler’s story ended sadly. Suffering from delusions in April 1924, Roffler was admitted to a sanitorium in Portland, where he hanged himself. But his stately homes remain. The John Roffler House at 1437 N.E. Everett St. was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.