How It All Started

WELCOME TO WELLCROFT BLOG


We want to tell you the whole story of how we got started with our land in Washington state. It is an interesting story to us with many unexpected twists and turns, but you have our permission to jump to the parts you most want to learn about and skip the parts that don't interest you. . . just don't tell me what you skipped.

First of all, I want to add a disclaimer to the blog from the start. Blogging is not my strong suit. If you view disjointed photos and text, chalk it up to this beginner. Hey, at least I'm trying! (Just consider that I will get to critique your blog too.) 

How It All Started

Believe it or not, it all started in New Mexico along about the summer of 2015. We looked at several properties near Glorieta. Some were very promising; one in particular had an amazing view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains from Santa Fe all the way to Las Vegas. But it was right by I-25 and the railroad, so the noise factor outweighed the view factor. But at least we learned that we valued peace and quiet over a view. And we also learned from our home in San Marcos that we did not want to deal with a Home Owners Association which the New Mexico property had!

The next year during a visit to Butch's folk's house, they urged us to look at some properties in their town of Bremerton. We dutifully viewed several fixer-uppers, the only ones somewhat within our price range. We learned that we didn't feel comfortable with the prospect of doing extensive demolition and remodeling by ourselves.

Thank you, Ranae!
Thank you, Wendy!
After several heart to heart discussions over the next year or so, we realized that we wanted to live away from town in a more secluded, rural, and quiet setting. This would likely require us to build from scratch. (More about that in future posts.) Since we didn't live in the area, Butch enlisted the help of his sister, Ranae, and cousin, Wendy, to scope out land listings that he found interesting. These two wonderful ladies spent many-a-weekend driving around looking at listings and helping us evaluate their qualities.

One afternoon, Wendy and Ranae contacted us by Facetime to show us a property near Seabeck, Washington. As they were scanning the trees from the road (all we could see on our phone was green, green, green) the neighbor to the east, Dan, showed up and began to share all the terrific attributes of the property. When Butch heard that state land bordered the 5.22 acre lot on two sides, he was sold. Our first offer was tabled because someone had beat us to the punch. But we were notified within a day that the first buyer had backed out. Butch didn't wait to tell me, instead he told the agent to re-submit our offer. It was accepted! We bought the land without seeing it with our own eyes.

On May 31, 2017 we signed the papers to complete the purchase of what we now call Wellcroft. Ranae helped us with that too.
We celebrated with pink champagne provided by our real estate agent. (Champagne not pictured but very dry)



Butch is proudly displaying the deed to the land.




A week later, in June, we had the family come and take a look. Kelly, Gavin, Alethea, Will, Kyle, Charlotte, Butch and I all trekked out the the land to look around and to take a memorable photo.



So that is how it happened that we came to own property on the Olympic Peninsula just 2 miles from the Seabeck, Washington post office.


Darcy's Rhododendron

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