LEAVENWORTH – Living in downtown Leavenworth has made David Severance a believer in magic. As the city’s own Saint Nicholas, he brings wonder into hundreds of children’s eyes each year when he stoops down to ask them their wish.
And Severance credits a little magic for giving him the home he loves – a third-floor apartment overlooking Front Street Park in the heart of the city’s Bavarian downtown.
If he hadn’t noticed a rental sign the second time he passed it, retracing his steps by chance on a trip to town eight years ago, he wouldn’t have his close-up view of the town’s maypole, its bandstand, its parades and celebrations. He may not have gotten so involved organizing festivals there year-round.
“I always look at it as fate,” he said, looking down from his living-room window on a recent evening, as tourists shopped in the Christkindlmarkt below and thousands of Christmas lights covered the buildings and trees.
Severance is one of a few who live above the shops in Leavenworth’s downtown core, where residents say the beauty and fun far outweigh the hassles of life in a tourist wonderland.
“It’s a totally awesome place to live,” said Virginia Johnson, who shares an apartment with her husband below the city’s glockenspiel, a clock set high in the wall outside that plays music and performs with miniature dancing figures on the hour.
“We plan to buy a home,” Johnson said, “but if we never do, I’d want to stay here.”
The Christmas lights never get on her nerves, and with the glockenspiel she’s always on time. She goes to every festival, and she loves the smell of sauerkraut and sausage.
“All the tourists are really friendly,” she said. “Sometimes it gets a little packed, but everybody gets by pretty well.”
Mayor Mel Wyles grew up in the old Tyrol building on Front Street, where he lived from 1953-70. He said Bavarianizaton in the 1960s changed the city center from a “ghost town” into a vibrant place to live.
“There was voices and noise and movement,” he said. “It was like there was life. Before, you never heard anything. It’s just like nothing was there.”
Downtown residents play an important role in keeping the city livable, he said.
“It gives it some restrictions if you have people living there,” he said. “They keep an eye on things.”
But downtown residents are a vanishing breed, as more apartments are converted each year to nightly rentals. Sherry Schweizer, sales manager at the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce, said there are only a handful of apartments left above the shops.
Kathy Gillespie moved from Seattle into an apartment above two gift shops and a cafe on Eighth Street a year and a half ago. But the building recently sold, and the new owner gave her notice to leave by April.
The apartments are being converted into suites for tourists, she said.
Gillespie, a manager at Blackbird Lodge’s time-share rental office, said she’d like to find another place downtown. She said the fun of people-watching and bantering with the crowds from her balcony makes up for problems with parking and gridlock.
The streets can be raucous, she said, especially during Oktoberfest, when she found a man passed out on the sidewalk outside her door.
But Leavenworth really cranks into high gear for the holidays, with a series of festivals and lighting ceremonies that earned it the title Ultimate Holiday Town USA last year by the A&E Network.
Downtown residents said Christmas is their favorite time of year, even though the crowds are thickest.
“It takes 20 minutes to walk around the corner during Christmas lighting,” said Melissa Morse, who lives with her boyfriend and baby daughter below the glockenspiel next door to Johnson.
But she said she loves the view and the people-watching, and the crowds and noise haven’t bothered her too much since she moved from Seattle last year.
“It’s Leavenworth,” she said. “I knew what I was getting myself into.”
Holidays are when Severance dons his heavy green robe, picks up his jewel-covered staff, and takes to the streets as Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas.
He said he never grows tired of the crowds, especially during the holidays.
“The beauty of it is, they’re all happy people,” he said. “They’re here to get into the Christmas spirit.”
Leon Comeau sees another side of downtown. He and his roommates live above the Der Sportsmann sports shop on Front Street, but face the Edelweiss Weg alleyway in back. “It’s beautiful getting up every morning and seeing Wedge Mountain and Mountain Home full of snow,” he said.
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