It’s not every day a writer gets to spend 15 hours in a car with arguably the world’s most famous male model, Fabio. It’s even less common that trip ends about an hour from downtown Vancouver.
Washington Post reporter Geoff Edgers wrote an essay about his road trip with Fabio last year, and while the writing will get you hooked, it’s the destination that will keep locals reading.
“The airport in Portland … was only 45 minutes away from the Washington spread,” Edgers wrote. To clarify: Fabio was heading here. Oh, do tell.
The male model-actor-protein powder peddler has about 500 acres near the Skamania Lodge, and he told the Post he intended to spend half a year there.
Where? A search through the Skamania County parcel map will not show any land owned by Fabio Lanzoni, though a California company — linked to a very nice house near Los Angeles — owns some property not far from state Highway 14. Inconclusive, to be sure, though perhaps Fabio is looking for some wooded privacy anyway.
And of all the places where he could find such a sanctuary, he chose the Columbia River Gorge.
“It’s one of the most beautiful places,” Fabio told Edgers. “Not just in America. But in the world.”
The traveling pair stopped at Skamania Lodge toward the end of their journey, and the king of romance novel covers was of course recognized and approached by several women, one of whom said the 56-year-old is “hotter than ever.”
There’s probably a good chance you can still chance upon Fabio at the lodge, as he intends to build a house “with sharp angles and glass” on his nearby property.
Describing photos of the site, Edgers wrote: “There was a mountain vista. A lake surrounded by redwoods. And a waterfall. It was easy to imagine Fabio, in his big-haired glory, gazing out from the mist as a blond beauty embraced his pecs.”
All fine imagery, but it’s more likely those are Douglas firs surrounding the lake. Unless Fabio would like to invite us over and show us otherwise.
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
