The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG-Paul and Karen Gregutt bought their Waitsburg home in 2005. Busy with professions in Seattle, Paul is a noted wine writer and music afficionado, and Karen is a filmmaker, they had been searching for a second home for years. What they wanted was not the typical second home that busy Seattleites end up with, Karen said she wanted to live in a place with authenticity, "I didn't want to drive four and a half hours to live in Issaquah." Their search on the west side of the state turned fruitless, so they finally decided to take a look in Eastern Washington.

They spent weeks looking for a home in Walla Walla, but didn't find anything that fit their specifications-they weren't in the market for a large square-footage home with vineyard potential, nor did they want a poorly remodeled older home.

While staying with friends in Walla Walla, they took a drive out to Waitsburg to have dinner at the Whoop-Em-Up Cafe. With this visit, Karen "fell in love with Waitsburg, I just thought it was so authentic."

After looking at every available house for sale in town, the realtor said, "I have one house left to show you." One sunny July day, they arrived at the decrepit structure at Garden Street. Built in 1875, it was the first structure built on that site. It had endured a number of random additions. The house was a jumble; its third of an acre yard overgrown with blackberry bushes, a crooked barn, and vegetation covering a total of nine vehicles. Perhaps because it happened to be Karen's birthday, Paul agreed to purchase the house.

Karen tells a vivid story of her first solo visit to the house, the moment when the renovations began. "I spent the morning pulling up carpeting only to find 3" of dirt beneath it. I made a little space for myself to sleep on the porch that night and the next day began sorting things into piles." Karen recalled.

In the "keep" pile Karen salvaged all the available wood from the walls, which was first-growth fir, these ultimately became the beautiful stained kitchen countertops. Various other "treasures" were uncovered, old signage, and some farm equipment.

The renovations began in earnest and the Gregutts reached out to Walla Walla architect Jon Campbell, who came up with a graceful solution to the 'roofline problem,' where the building's add-ons converged in cacaphony. New electric, heating, cooling, plumbing, windows, doors, roof, insulation soon followed, but the couple received a nasty surprise as they got underway: there was no foundation.

Nine concrete pours later, the house now had a firm footing, and coincidentally, the back half of the house was not 10" lower than the front half of the house.

Builder Alan Ketelsen introduced the couple to Mike Needham, his right-hand man, who agreed to work on the project over the quiet winter months. Bart Baxter, a former Waitsburg city councilman, came on board to do a majority of the finish work.

And although the contrast between the before and after of the exterior of the house is truly stunning, it is when you get to see the inside of the house, that you are truly amazed. Just to say, the finish work is divine. The walls gleam, the woodwork is gorgeous and it all conforms as closely as possible to the original footprint of the house. Karen says they "salvaged every scrap we could to use on the current house, so it feels as authentic as possible."

The exterior buildings, there are two of them, also were completely renovated. The large metal barn was initially so crooked, they had to tie a chain to it to straighten it out with a large truck. Now the space is insulated enough so that Karen can heat it with just a radiator heater, making it a wonderful place for her to paint, draw, do charcoal work and more.

And the garden! Although I visited in early fall, the garden was still stunning. A total of eleven raised beds are home to 70 rose bushes, healthy and lustrous rose bushes, evident even without their blooms. Small seating areas and fine attention to detail provide welcoming spaces for outdoor living and entertaining.

Kudos to the Gregutt's for all of their hard work, their attention to detail, and for helping to keep Waitsburg authentic.