Soon to be gone....

This is where I grew up from the age of 12....

Actually, this is where I grew up from the age of 12. We lived in a log cabin. OK, that's stretching it. It was a Pan Abode pre-fab log cabin. Yes, it had running water. And electricity. And the floors were wood, except where it had a rug on it, or linoleum. The only dirt was in the back yard, or the garden, or the driveway.

When we moved to Seattle in 1976, I was 12 and my Dad, who had moved twice during his own high-school years didn't want to subject me or my siblings to that. After having moved every three years for the past 12 (Cincinnatti, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Boston), my parents decided that this was it. The last move.

We moved to the suburbs because we had always lived in the suburbs. We moved to Issaquah, because it was pretty close to a swimming pool with a swim team for us kids. We moved to this house because we needed a big yard because our dog, Sport, was somewhat overprotective, and hadn't done well in smaller settings.

And yipee-yi-ki-yay, we were out West, so what could be better than a log cabin (with all modern conveniences) sitting on 4 acres of land? To the north, a 10-acre parcel owned by the school district was a cow pasture. To the south and east we beheld forested, undeveloped land. To the west, the road and past that several horse farms.

The early 80s brought the first wave of development, in the area south and east. By the early 90s, the school district had deemed the parcel unsuitable for a modern campus, so they traded it with a developer for a different plot and the tract mansions sprouted up like weeds.

The writing was on the wall. My mother knew that she would sell to a developer (or the city, if they wanted to build a park, or something. But she knew she didn't want to live there and morally, being one of the last dominoes to fall to development feels much better than being one of the first.

So, I, Sondra, and her real estate agent helped her through the permitting process, she bought water rights, traffic concurrencies, paid engineers to map out the wetland, figure out where to put the houses & the level 3 detention pond (whatever that is), and waited for the wheels of government to grind out a decision.

She got her preliminary plat approval last fall and the sale is finally about to go through. My Mom won't have to worry about throwing good money after bad by fixing something for the renters. There are no renters any longer. Soon enough, there will be no house. And no more chicken coop. And many of the trees that have grown precipitously in my memory will fall as well.

It's a sad time, but a nice change as well. My 62-year-old Mom will turn her major asset into something more liquid and something with better ROE.

If anyone's interested in salvaging a remarkable Western Red Cedar structure, get in touch with me. It's not pristine, but it's definitely just the thing for your 1500 sq. ft. cabin in the woods. As-is, you haul, you sign a million liability waivers. Any reasonable offers accepted, but time is limited. Literally.  

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