By LOGAN PRICE

For The Beachcomber

For the past 21 years, the old Marjesira Inn, a Victorian-style house perched on a bulkhead above Quartermaster Harbor, has been the site of a celebratory Friends Thanksgiving, as rich in history as the house itself.

Every November, families have gathered at crowded tables in the inn’s elegant living room, replete with antique furniture that looks much as it did 100 years ago. Three large French doors open up to a third-story balcony over the bay.

This year, once again, guests — friends, family, babies and seniors — formed a circle in the living room before dinner.

“I am thankful for this gathering, and that Marjesira can provide the space for it,” Marian Brischle, the owner of the house, told guests as she lit a candle for blessing.

The Marjesira Inn is a unique icon of Island life, a place teeming with history and life that even today holds a remarkable place in the community.

The inn was built in 1906 by Ira and Jessie Case before there were many roads on Vashon. Ira Case was the president of the Tacoma Soap Company, and with the help of a local carpenter he built the inn as part residence, part community center: It featured a post office, general store and, of course, plenty of guest housing.

The house was given the name Marjesira, derived from the first names of the family who built it — Margaret, the Cases’ daughter, Jessie and Ira. It soon became the hub of a growing Magnolia Beach community, what some considered at the time a haven for the sophisticated summer set who flocked to Vashon.

With the addition of a wharf, Marjesira became a port-of-call for the Mosquito Fleet, a network of privately owned steam vessels that serviced Puget Sound, carrying mail, supplies and passengers long before the creation of the state-owned ferry system.

After the construction of Marjesira, Ira Case became a prominent local figure: He edited the local newspaper in Burton, was influential in the creation of the Vashon Highway and even served a term in Olympia as a state representative.

Jessie Case, too, became an important fixture, managing the inn with flair, baking bread that people loved and hosting parties known as the Island’s best.

The inn remained a post office until 1953 and a general store until 1958, one year before Jessie Case’s death.

Today, although the steam boats are long gone and with them the wharf, a wisteria tree planted by the Cases still embraces the house’s Victorian-style balconies, its branches as thick as arms. It stands as a metaphor for the Cases, whose lives are entwined with the history of Vashon Island.

“Having large gatherings is an important aspect of the house that has remained throughout the years,” said Brischle, the granddaughter of Jessie and Ira Case.

She remembers her grandmother cooking meals every Sunday. They were so good, she says, that guests would travel from Tacoma by steamboat to enjoy them. She also remembers as a child seeing the last steam vessel bring passengers to the Marjesira wharf.

“Even in those days,” she said, “some people would commute every day to the city.” Her mother, Margaret Case, rode the steam boat every weekday for four years to attend high school in Tacoma.

Despite all the changes that have occurred around the Marjesira Inn during the last century, the building itself has remained much the same.

It is now considered a King County landmark, and like the old inn that it is, the seven small bedrooms on the top floor are still lettered “a” through “g.”

And in a way, Marjesira’s status as an inn has not changed much. There are often so many guests, friends and artists around that it is still jokingly called “the hotel.”

Brischle now owns the building, but business and friends long ago took her to the San Francisco Bay area, where she now lives most of the year, returning to spend her summers at the house as she did when she was a child.

Brischle has passed the management of the house to Jacqui Lown, a position she’s held off and on for the last 21 years. Her two children, now young adults, grew up in the house.

One of her most important duties as caretaker is having plenty of guests, Lown said.

“The house always seems happiest when it is filled with lots of people. It just lends itself to that,” she said.

Indeed, the house seems to have become a focal point for those with a strong sense of place. For many, the gathering last Saturday was a way to celebrate the solid roots they have grown on Vashon Island.

“I see a lot of the same people tonight, who were here when I was a kid, 13 years ago,” remarked one young woman, now a mother.

“The only difference is, we kids have grown up and now have our own. Now I realize how important these gatherings are,” she said, looking down at her 3-year-old son as he played with the other children in the parlor.

Lown is glad to be able to host the event. She helped start Friends Thanksgiving at another location in 1981, and the event followed her family to Marjesira when they began caretaking the house five years later.

The size of the group varies from year to year, but for many it has remained a constant — a way to kick off the holiday season and remember the importance of friends and family.

Publicity is by word of mouth, and the size of the crowd depends on how much energy is put into organizing the event.

“Last year 70 people came, but the year before it was only 10, and they all brought potato dishes,” said Lown with a laugh. “We didn’t have enough protein.”

Regardless of who shows up, Lown and Brischle agree that the event falls in line with the history of the house and its role within the community — a house that was built to bring people together.

— Logan Price is a freelance writer who lives at

the Marjesira Inn.