Renaissance for a pioneer home

J oe and Kathy Luckraft bought the house nobody wanted, the one local kids used to sneak into for a scare.

Around Lakewood, it was known as the haunted house: a dilapidated farmhouse with no windows and a moldy roof with a grid of holes.

“It was a rotting mess,” Joe Luckraft said.

Most would have fired up the bulldozer and read that house its last rites.

The Luckrafts didn’t.

It took 25 years, but the couple transformed that rotting mess into a fine country home. In the process, they resurrected a piece of local history nearly lost to time.

Lakewood pioneers

In 1886, John Oldson Blacken moved with his family from Michigan to the area known today as Lakewood.

The area was still untamed forest and wetlands back then, and the family was one of the first pioneer families to settle the area. They built a 19-by-30-foot log cabin, cleared the land and planted crops.

Once the government approved their homestead application, the Blackens bought 80 acres of land for 25 cents an acre and began to build a proper home.

Lakewood’s history Lakewood, the community west of Arlington, was first settled in 1886 by fishermen, farmers and loggers. Back then it was known as Summit because it was the highest point along the railroad tracks from Seattle to Bellingham. Later, the town became known as English after the English Logging Co. A railroad sign still bears the name English. The area got the name Lakewood after two real estate agents tried to sell land by calling it Lakewood Garden Tracts. People liked the name. After a year of wrangling with the U.S. Postal Service, the area officially became Lakewood. Source: “History of Lakewood,” provided by longtime resident Marie Olson

They completed the two-story, four-gabled farmhouse in the early 1900s. Photographs show the Blackens’ children hamming for the camera in front of a tidy home with a sweeping covered porch and white columns.

The Blackens lived a rough, rural life. During the next 50 years, time and rustic living stripped the farmhouse of its charm.

Animal pelts were stretched across nails on the second story for drying. Engines were repaired in the kitchen, and notches from chopping wood pockmarked the floor in front of the stove.

In 1953, Kathy Luckraft’s uncles, Andy and Ed Sather, purchased the home from the Blackens with plans to farm the surrounding land.

Ed Sather dreamed of fixing the house for himself. It sat vacant for nearly 30 years.

Hidden charm

Anyone with vision could see the farmhouse’s potential, the classic lines and firm foundation – at least, that’s what Joe Luckraft thought when he first saw it in 1979 at age 23.

Luckraft had moved to Washington from the East Coast to study woodworking. He planned to master the trade and return to Cape Cod to work on fine homes.

Then he met Kathy Sather, the daughter of a local dairy farmer. Soon he was visiting her uncles’ Lakewood property, the site of the old Blacken farmhouse.

By then, the abandoned house had gained a reputation around town as an eyesore. Years of moisture seeping through holes had fed blackberry vines and weeds. A lush fern thrived in the kitchen wall. Piles of rotting debris were heaped in one corner.

“Even in that state I thought what a shame a house with such nice lines is being allowed to rot to the ground,” he said.

The couple decided to marry and wanted to make the old Blacken house their home. He persuaded Kathy’s uncle to sell him several acres of land the house sat on.

Joe Luckraft sent his mother a photo of their new home. She cried when she saw it.

Transformation

For a year and a half, the couple spent every spare moment working on the house. People would stop and ask the couple about their plans. Joe Luckraft could tell what they were thinking.

“People thought we were absolutely nuts,” he said.

Opinion began to change as the house slowly took shape. Joe Luckraft spent several months hand-digging yards of dirt from under the foundation so the home could be wired and plumbed. The couple cleared years of water-soaked debris and trash from the inside, repaired walls riddled with bugs and rot, replaced the gabled roof, and lifted the entire second story to reinforce the floor.

All the while, Joe Luckraft was teaching woodworking at Everett Community College in the evenings, and Kathy Luckraft was working at a local dairy, milking cows six hours a day.

“It was like watching someone who was terminally ill get better,” she said. “There’s that spark of life, as if the house said, ‘I’m not done yet.’

“And we were two foolish people who took it on.”

Resurrection

By the early 1990s, the Luckrafts had completed the bulk of the repairs. But it wouldn’t be enough for this house to be livable; it needed to be beautiful.

Joe Luckraft, by now an experienced furniture and cabinetmaker, applied his skills to the farmhouse. He built the home’s doors and cabinetry, fashioned wainscoting and thick bands of ornate trim, and created an elaborate mission-style staircase.

The Blackens would hardly recognize their pioneer farmhouse, with its Craftsman and mission style details and fixtures.

The Luckrafts made their own tongue-and-groove wood flooring, and Joe crafted most of the furniture in the house. Kathy made the stained glass for the parlor pocket door.

The couple saved what they could from the original house, but didn’t hesitate to modernize. The Luckrafts opened up the floor plan in the kitchen and added a brick archway to the living room. The house has two bathrooms and the couple added a solarium.

Upstairs, the Luckrafts opted for an open floor plan with a large family room. Katie, their 11-year-old daughter, has her own room tucked under an eave. The master bathroom has a cedar-lined sauna and wainscoting of handmade tile in a crackled seafoam glaze.

The outside appears nearly unchanged from the original home, with the exception of tidy modern landscaping that Kathy Luckraft tends. The couple keeps several cows and a substantial vegetable garden on the surrounding 10 acres.

The house continues to draw attention, but these days it’s usually offers to buy. One couple insisted on a tour of the house, even after the Luckrafts said they weren’t selling.

Kathy and Joe Luckraft, now both 49, said they can’t imagine living anywhere else. With their own hands, they’ve built a family home and kept something alive that has meaning – to them and the community.

“To everybody it was just an eyesore,” she said. “Now it shines.”

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.