National Park Service Lists Ursula K. Le Guin House In The National Register Of Historic Places (Photo)
- 07/23/26
Portland - The Ursula K. Le Guin House in Portland’s Willamette Heights neighborhood is among Oregon’s newest entries in the National Register of Historic Places. Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation (SACHP) recommended the nomination at its February 2026 meeting for the property’s national significance in the areas of literature and women’s social history for its direct association with acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin. The National Park Service, which maintains the National Register, accepted the nomination in late June 2026.
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) is recognized as one of the most influential American literary figures of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Widely regarded for her transformative contributions to science fiction and fantasy, she explored questions of gender, identity, power, and community in her work. Her home at 3321 NW Thurman Street served as her primary residence and creative environment for nearly six decades, from 1960 through her death in 2018. Within these rooms she authored many of her most celebrated works, including A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and The Dispossessed (1974), as well as poetry, essays, translations, and children’s literature. Her works played a defining role in the New Wave literary movement and helped shape modern speculative fiction, earning her numerous awards including five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, and the National Book Award.
The house on NW Thurman Street retains the key interior spaces where Le Guin worked, including her second-floor writing room with its built-in desk and views of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. The surrounding gardens, established and maintained by Le Guin’s husband Charles Le Guin, form a significant component of the property’s setting and remain central to its historic character. Together, these spaces preserve the feeling and association of the home as both a family residence and a creative environment that shaped one of the nation’s most influential literary voices.
The home was recently donated to Literary Arts, a Portland, Ore. based nonprofit, by the Le Guin family to establish the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. Once established, the residency will welcome writers to live and work in the home, with a focus on supporting historically underrepresented voices in literature.
The National Register of Historic Places
The National Register is maintained by the National Park Service under the authority of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Properties listed in the National Register are:
- Recognized as significant to the nation, state, or community;
- Considered in the planning of federal or federally assisted projects;
- Eligible for certain federal and state tax benefits;
- Qualified for historic preservation grants when funds are available;
- Eligible for leniency in meeting certain building code requirements;
- Subject to local laws pertaining to the conservation and protection of historic resources.
State law in Oregon requires local governments to offer a minimal level of protection for properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places; decisions about how to accomplish that goal reside with local governments, which also have the authority to create and regulate local historic districts and landmarks.
Interested in learning more about the National Register of Historic Places? Visit the National Register program webpage at https://www.oregon.gov/oprd/OH/pages/national-register.aspx to explore listed properties, review eligibility criteria and the nomination timeline, access research tools, and—if you are curious whether your property might qualify—submit a Historic Resource Record (HRR) form to receive preliminary feedback from State Historic Preservation Office staff.
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