Address and directions will be sent to registered participants

In 1913 Seattle property manager David Whitcomb, Sr. purchased 320 acres of recently logged property south of Edmonds. His vision was of a woodland residential community with easy access to the city along Pacific Highway. The sales of lots came with setback requirements, which prohibited subdividing lots to less than two acres, and building more than one home on each two-acre lot. The intent was to maintain breathing space and the country-like atmosphere in perpetuity, preventing the kind of development that inevitably destroyed that peacefulness in city homes.

His success can be seen in the house and grounds designed by Arthur Loveless for Mr. and Mrs. Merritt Bloxom from Virginia and California completed in 1928. A number of owners have made subsequent changes to it, but it retains its understated English-style character within a setting of ponds, formal and cutting gardens, a newly created Japanese garden, and its great lawn spread out to the bluff overlooking Puget Sound. Lindsey and Carolyn Echelbarger, present owners, have enlarged the kitchen, relocated the dining room and repurposed the original dining room into a den, added custom oak paneling and built-ins and made other improvements both indoors and out. The walls showcase an outstanding collection of work by early 20th century Pacific Northwest regional artists. Lindsey’s and Carolyn’s collecting have inspired the development of a museum specifically designed to feature work by these and other artists that have not gotten the attention they deserve. The result is the Cascadia Art Museum that opened in Edmonds in September 2015. David Martin of Martin-Zambito Fine Arts, who handles the estates of several of these artists, has written books and catalogs and curated exhibits about them to reveal their rich artistic legacy. He will be present at the house to provide insight into their work.

Photo by Larry Kreisman

Registration is closed for this event.