Our story
Our Story
A kayak trip, an orca outside the dining room window, and a perfect beach.
The water
From the moment I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I loved it. I still think Puget Sound is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The inlets here are unlike anything I had seen before. It's the ocean, but it feels like a pool. Calm water, wildlife everywhere, views in every direction. And right next to all that wildness, real towns and cities, people going about their lives. That combination got me.
From then on, almost every vacation I had, short or long, I spent on the water here. It's where I feel most like myself.
The kayak
In June 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I took my kids for a week in a rental house on Hood Canal. Everything was closed. The world had shut down, and it felt like the best possible place to be, outside, in nature, together.
Out on the water in my kayak one day, I got talking with a man who had bought a little fixer-upper on the waterfront a month before the pandemic. When lockdown came, he moved his family out of their apartment in downtown Seattle and into the cabin, to be in nature and away from the stress of the city. He wasn't there for a vacation. This was his life now.
That stayed with me. On the paddle back, the thought arrived whole: why not have a place like this? My own place. Somewhere we could keep coming back to. Not a vacation from my life. A part of it.
The search
So I started looking. And as I searched, I got to know the sound. Inlet by inlet. No two places here are alike. Every beach is different. Every neighborhood is different. One inlet is not the next.
I learned to read the shoreline. High bank could give you a beautiful view, but not the connection to the water I wanted. Low bank did not always mean beach; sometimes it meant mud.
I wanted the real thing. A beach I could walk. Ocean water I could step into. A place I could be in the water, not above it.
The orca
In July, I went to see a house in Olalla that was far above what I could pay. I went just to look.
The dark red carpet hurt my eyes, the moment I walked in. The front of the house was ugly and uninviting. Every room was dated and tired. There wasn't much inside to fall in love with.
So I looked outside. That was the whole reason I had come.
I was standing in the dining room, looking out at the water, when I saw it. An orca. Swimming right in front of me, so close I could hardly believe it. I turned to the realtor beside me and asked, 'Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?' She was staring too. She could not believe it either.
I walked out of that house knowing. This was the sign. This house was going to be mine.
The beach
It had everything I had been looking for, and something I had not known to look for.
The beach was perfect. Real ocean water, a shoreline you can walk, a dock with a gazebo over the water. And the house itself, old as it was, had character. A mid-century home with good bones and a vibe you can't build from scratch.
Around it, privacy, wildlife, a small and lovely neighborhood, the community of Olalla. Minutes from the Gig Harbor marina, which has always made me feel like I'm on vacation just by being there.
The first weekend it was mine, I brought my kids out to see it. Our place on the water.
The transformation
The vision was simple to say and hard to do. Turn this into a large family getaway, as comfortable, spacious, and well-equipped as our home in Portland. No compromise. And bring out the beauty already there. Let nature come inside and speak.
Then came the pandemic shortages and delays, and everything that could get hard got hard.
I could have cut corners, made it smaller, cheaper, faster. But I wanted to get it right.
The foundation came before the finishes. The work went in phases: the main living floors first, with the basement, and the rest of my dreams for the house waiting their turn. Not shrinking. Just waiting. I chose the wood in a showroom in the spring. I waited months for doors. I held on to the vision for over a year, through one delay after another.
Room by room, the old house came down to its bones and came back to life. The carpet that had hurt my eyes went. Walls opened, and light came in. The view that had always been there finally felt like part of the house. Nature came inside, just as I'd hoped.
Drag the handle on each photo to see the same spot, before and after.
By fall of 2021, the remodel was done. By spring of 2022, the dream was complete. Not fast, not easy, but worth all of it.
Now
Then the world reopened. I went back to traveling for work, back to a life that did not let me be at the house as often as before.
So I started sharing it. With friends and family, and with guests. We still come out a few times a year, host gatherings, spend long evenings together, and make the house our starting point before heading out into nature.
And I love reading the reviews. Guests write about the seals, the otters, the eagles, and every so often, an orca. It never gets old.
There's something lovely about knowing that a place that means so much to me is becoming a part of other people's memories, too.
Thank you for letting me share my story. I hope you find this place as special as I do.
I've put a lot of love into this house. I hope you feel it when you're here.