Ole Eide’s memories stretch back nearly a century, to childhood in a farmhouse between Stanwood and Camano Island.
“There were nine of us, four boys and five girls,” said Eide, whose 98 years haven’t clouded his early memories.
“The family really enjoyed living in that house,” he said. “It had six bedrooms. My father designed it with space to take care of all the kids.”
Drivers crossing the Gen. Mark W. Clark Memorial Bridge on Highway 532 today won’t see the house, a landmark since 1909.
It’s gone from the Stillaguamish riverbank on Leque Island. It’s gone, but not forever.
Across I-5 in the Arlington area, Kris and Karl Green have stacks and stacks of lumber on their 21/2 acres. The boards are old-growth fir, unheard of in today’s construction but common in a house built in 1909.
If all goes according to plans and dreams, the old Eide house that’s now in pieces on the Greens’ land will rise anew.
“I love history and old-style architecture,” said Karl Green, 44, who has worked in construction and is now in real estate. “We always wanted something very special,” said Kris Green, 41, a teacher at Garfield Elementary School in Everett.
The couple and their three sons have lived nearly nine years in a large mobile home on the rural property, which has a pond, woods and grassy open space.
Karl Green and his brother were building a home for a pastor on Camano Island when they noticed the old farmhouse, empty but still solid.
“I saw a value in it,” Karl Green said. “I did some research in county records and found the state owned it.”
The Greens paid an unbelievable $10 for the house in a purchase from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“It sat there a number of years. We were going to donate it to the fire department to burn it as a training project. We were a couple months from doing that, and the Greens showed up,” said Kye Iris, a regional lands agent with the department.
“How the $10 was arrived at, I couldn’t tell you. It made the bill of sale official,” Iris said.
Built by Ole Eide’s father, Stanwood pioneer Ole Eide Sr., the homestead was later occupied and its 90 acres farmed by Eric Eide, eldest of the nine. Later, the house was rented by another family, but it had been vacant since the 1980s.
The younger Ole Eide spent his career as a state fish and game official, and the Eide family sold its property to the state in the 1990s. The house was earlier purchased at auction from the state, but that buyer only stripped it of valuable features, Iris said.
“That family hauled out moldings and doors. Fortunately, they left at least one door and window with all the trim intact. We can at least try to bring it back to the original style,” Karl Green said.
What began as a $10 investment is likely to cost $200,000 to $250,000 to complete. That’s not counting all the sweat the Greens have put into dismantling it. The sale was final in September of 2004, but the Greens didn’t start taking the house down until the spring of 2005.
They’ve nearly cleared the Stanwood site, and they expect construction to begin next spring.
“We took it from the point of removing all the plaster and lath, and now there’s nothing,” said Karl Green, who’ll do most of the rebuilding himself. He has redrawn the plans, which will be submitted to Snohomish County.
The exterior style, a Dutch-hipped farmhouse with gables and clapboard siding, will be much the same. The Greens will extend the porch around the house. Inside, “we’re going to add two more bathrooms,” Karl Green said. As the owner of a 1909 house, I understand why.
New bathrooms, a new kitchen and a change that turns an old downstairs bedroom into a more open area will bring the past into today’s style of living. The Greens will have help from their sons, Mark, 18, Andrew, 17, and Iain, 6.
The 6-year-old calls it “the broken house,” Kris Green said. Her husband said that for an experienced builder, there’s not much mystery to putting it back together. “I know the 2-by-8’s are floor joists, and the 2-by-4’s are wall studs and plate material,” he said. “As long as you understand the project, it’s pretty easy.”
Karen Prasse, a volunteer with the Stanwood Area Historical Society, said the removal “very much leaves a blank spot on the horizon.”
“But it’s wonderful it’s being remembered in this way. It’s great that this family is rebuilding the house,” Prasse said.
Iris said the Stanwood area land will be used by the public for hunting or wildlife observation. That should please Ole Eide. “He was a game warden here,” Prasse said. “He talks wonderfully about watching the ducks and snow geese.”
“I’m very happy,” Eide said from his home on Camano Island. “That was a wonderful home.”
No longer the Eide house, it may get a new label.
“We’re thinking about Green Acres or Green Gables,” Kris Green said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein julie@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
