By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Chase Garden is for sale, but its days as a public attraction aren't ending.
Garden Conservancy, which has operated the garden on a non-profit basis the past six years, has put the Graham-area property and an accompanying house on the market. The decision was made "after several years of trying to find a compatible non-profit steward," the organization said in a statement.
The four-acre site is listed through Keller Williams Realty for $335,000. According to Garden Conservancy officials, an easement will require a new owner to be a steward of the garden and open it periodically to the public. The easement also protects "significant features" of the residence and garden as it was designed by original owners Ione and Emmott Chase, who bequeathed the site to the conservancy in 2010, in between their deaths in 2006 and 2012, respectively.
Last spring, Chase Garden's director, Lori Taylor, said the Garden Conservancy was negotiating with another non-profit it hoped would take over Chase as a public-private entity. The garden wasn't for sale to non-garden interests at that point.
By June 30, Chase was closed to the public. It had been open on certain days for paid-admission tours.
The garden occupies a scenic, wooded bluff on 264th Street East, about three miles east of State Route 161. Starting in 1952 and continuing for 45 years, it was a labor of love for the Chases, who lived there in the home they built.
The single-level, 1,424-square-feet house has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a view of Mount Rainier.
The wooded setting has been known for its second-growth Douglas fir trees, native shrubs, groundcover and wildflowers. Perennials, Japanese maples and rhododendrons share the grounds among meandering paths. In 2001, Homestyle magazine named it one of "America’s Ten Most Beautiful Gardens." It also was the subject of a feature in the New York Times in 2003.
The garden and house present a "truly unique opportunity to experience and enjoy an iconic Pacific Northwest modernist garden and become a steward of this beloved legacy,” Keller Williams states in its listing of the property.
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