Two wood ducks glide down and land smoothly on the small pond. You don’t see those too often. They tend to like it where it’s nice and quiet and undisturbed, avoiding houses, people, development.
We are in an open field, surrounded by huge firs and hemlocks and red cedars. A few chickens pick lazily at the grass; Pumpkin the horse munches away; Lucky the goat flops around.
(I later learn Lucky and Pumpkin are good buddies. A few years ago, Lucky was one of half a dozen goats. Then, a pack of coyotes got amongst them. The coyotes got the other five, but Lucky survived by hiding underneath big Pumpkin. That’s how Lucky got his name, and a lifelong friendship was born.)
The only sound is the bark chips of the trail crunching underfoot. It’s a stunning spring afternoon, the best of the season so far, warm and fragrant. When I heard earlier this month that a lady by the name of Mary Pigott had decided to gift her sizable property, north of Pine Lake, to the City of Sammamish to be preserved as a community park, my first though was “I’ve got to see this place.”
Mary and her grandson Lukas, and golden retriever Annie, were kind enough to act as my guides, to not only the myriad of trails, ponds and landmarks of the property but also its history, the story of how it came into the Pigott family, and the rumors and legends of what happened there in an earlier time.
The 51 acre property is divided into three sections, and it is in three separate installments that they will be transfered to the city over the next decade or so.
In 1972, Mary and her husband made their home on a 15 acre section off 20th Avenue SE, in a home built in the 1920s. They bought it from a man named Moushey, a Boeing worker, who liked the country life.
Legend has it, the house was once used a boozy underground speakeasy, with rooms rented by the hour, during the era of prohibition. In the days when the Pine Lake was still called Frenchys, Seattle-ites looking for some fun would make the long trip out to Sammamish on a summer weekend. Mary said she has seen the pipes which she suspects ran the booze from underground kegs 100 yards away into the house, so if there was a raid, no evidence would be found.
“When we first moved here, this was the cheapest place in King County you could buy some property,” Mary said. Before the construction of Interstate 90, the Plateau was considered to be a long way from anywhere you’d want to be.
Over the next 20 years, the Pigott’s were good neighbors of the Tanner family, who owned the 20 acre lot adjoining their northern boundary. The Tanner’s had cows, which pretty much had free range of the rolling hills, ponds and creeks – and good life for the bovine, no doubt.
In the early 1990s, the Pigotts purchased the 20 acre lot from the Tanner family. The homestead was built during the First World War. On the property lies what Mary and Lucas know as “the Heritage Tree.”
“It was the one tree that remained, from when they had logged the place at the turn of the last century,” Mary said. “It’s the parent of all these other trees you see here now.”
One quiet, windless evening six or seven years ago, it fell down.
Mike Crippin, a good friend of the Pigott family who has lived in the area since the mid-70s, made a toy box for young Lucas out of its wood. It is Mike’s daughter who now lives in the old Tanner place.
As we approach a large pond toward the eastern boundary of the old Tanner property, I imagine I see the until now playful Annie dropping her head a little – she glances around, and sniffs the air.
“This is where Annie got bit by a Beaver,” Mary said. “Lukas and I saw it – a huge big thing it was.”
Annie and few other dogs were swimming in the pond when they saw the Beaver minding its own business near the bank. Ever curious, Annie went over to say hello… and then, an enormous yelp.
“The Beaver took a great bite out of her belly,” Mary recalled. “It was a real worry. Didn’t really stop her going back in though.”
Mary has a small crew of workers, and over the years they have built trails and boardwalks, so family and visitors can enjoy the property without encroaching on nature, or getting their feet wet.
“This is where a barn owl laid some eggs in an old crow’s nest,” Mary says, pointing to a shaded section of woods. “It was very cool.”
In the late 1990s, seizing the opportunity to secure a continuous parcel, Mary purchased the 16 acre section to the northwest of the old Tanner property.
That section is altogether different from the first two – it is densely forested, almost like a wilderness trail in parts. Lukas likes this part of the property, for its here you can see the “Big Rock.” It looks like a meteorite crash landed on the Plateau, but Mary tells me its an old piece of glacial erratic, which sprung up when two glaciers pushed together in the last ice age.
This property is the final piece in a 51 acre puzzle that, in many ways, tells the story of Sammamish – what has been, what is coming, and what the community must do to preserve and maintain the extraordinary landscape and environment of the Plateau.
This week, Mary met with Sammamish City Manager Ben Yazici and Parks Director Jessi Richardson to sign her intention to donate the three properties, in three stages over the next 15 years or so, to the City of Sammamish.
As per her wishes, there will be no significant development, no structured ball fields or buildings bigger than 2,500 square feet. Also per her instructions, the park will not be named after her. Mary seeks not recognition, only the knowledge that she contributed.
“As part of a community, we all have our rights and responsibilities, whether we like it or not,” she said.
Her husband died too young. Mary tells me that this taught her “there are no guarantees in life. I’m not going to live here forever.”
She says the idea of conserving a piece of land for the community had been with her for a while, ever since the opportunity came up to purchase the third parcel.
“I asked my kids about it, and they said ‘go for it.’ I’m just really pleased I am able to do this for the community – to be able to make a positive contribution to life up here.”
Richardson told me this week that “in my career, this is one of the most amazing, and generous, gifts to a park system that I have ever seen.”
Almost 40 years since her and her husband first moved in to the old speakeasy, the value of her gift to the city extends beyond real estate dollars. Conserved as a community park, as a place of quiet reflection, of recreation, a vital island green space in an ocean of development, Mary’s gift is one that will continue to give for many generations to come.
