Family Revives Historic Farm on Orcas Island with Sustainable Living

A modern farmhouse anchors family life at a legacy farm on Orcas Island

written by Melissa Dalton | photography by Will Austin

For the past decade, Evan Westcott would say the same thing to his wife, Inese, every year: “Let’s sell our house and move to a farm.” Then in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, her response was different. “Instead of resistance this time, it was met with a smile and an ‘Okay, let’s do it,’” recalled Evan. The couple were then based in Bellevue—he’s president and founder of WestCorp Construction and she’s a painter—but in short order, they bought a lot on Orcas Island, tapped their architect friend to design a house there and broke ground on the build.

Then something unexpected happened. Working in construction, Evan is always scrolling real estate listings, and that October, he saw that an Orcas Island heritage farm established in 1895 and called the Bonnie Brook Farm was up for sale. Intrigued, the couple checked it out on a classic, gloomy Pacific Northwest fall day with their three children in tow.

The new farmhouse from the old barn on Orcas Island.

The family tramped in the rain across the 120 acres of forest and farmland tucked below Turtleback Mountain, and through the orchard with apple trees planted more than 100 years ago. “I remember thinking, if you really like this farm on this day in this weather, then just think about what it’s going to be in the summer,” said Inese. “I absolutely loved the farm on that dreadful day. I thought it was the most beautiful, charming place.”

Despite having limited farming experience, both Evan and Inese have a deep love of nature—he spent his childhood in Issaquah “running around in the woods and riding bikes,” said Evan, while she grew up in Latvia “immersed in open fields and the sea.” They wanted their children to have the same experience “running wild,” so the decision to move to the farm felt more right than risky. They decided to sell their house in Deer Harbor and build a new family home on the property, once again enlisting their favorite architect, Todd Smith of Syndicate Smith, a firm based in Leavenworth. They asked him for “a fresh take on a true farmhouse,” said Smith. “A lot of people use the term farmhouse as a style, but this is a house for an operational farm.”

The living area includes the kitchen and gets you close to nature.

Having worked together on two previous homes, Smith and Evan knew they wanted to break the design into two separate volumes that form an L-shape around a private courtyard. “Todd and I are big fans of having a sleeping bunk and a living bunk,” said Evan. To that end, they clustered the kitchen, dining and living room in one, and the en-suite bedrooms, laundry and family room together in the second. Breaking them up in this way allows for more privacy and quiet for those sleeping, while any social gatherings can carry on in the main space. A corridor links the two.

The Westcott home design is two distinct buildings connected by a corridor.

Social spaces continue outside in the courtyard, dotted with raised garden beds, a hot tub, a lounge area with couches, a pizza oven and a fire pit. Inside, the kitchen is arranged as two long islands pulled off the walls, with another wall of storage and appliances. The arrangement creates flow and flexibility—there’s seating for guests along one island, window views from both the stove and sink and plenty of counter space for doing projects like drying fruit, pickling vegetables from the garden or making applesauce.

The two-island kitchen serves three kids and two adults.

Social spaces continue outside in the courtyard, dotted with raised garden beds, a hot tub, a lounge area with couches, a pizza oven and a fire pit.

The family can take its social functions outdoors around the fire pit and just beyond the pizza oven.

Interior finishes throughout were kept durable—no high-maintenance stones or too much tile grout to clean in the bathrooms—and in the “living bunk,” Smith used copious glass to tweak the classic farmhouse form. It’s “just playing with the language of the traditional pitched roof Monopoly house,” said Smith. “A simple, very iconic form, but then making ribbons of windows look out onto the landscape,” connecting the family with their pastoral surroundings.

The small but efficient wood stove makes all chilly nights cozy.

Taking that idea one step further, the exterior siding and interior wood treatments are from trees harvested from the property’s timber. “Our neighbor has a mobile mill, so he came over, made all the siding, and we stocked it to dry in the old barn, before installing it,” said Evan. “If you want to talk about green, that stuff never left the property.”

Anchoring the social chamber of the house is a wood stove, with its logs and kindling neatly stacked and covered.

A separate building houses a painting studio for Inese, who has also transformed a corner of the property with trails to create a Barefoot Park, which is used weekly by local schools for outdoor education purposes. Meanwhile, before they can replant the former cow and hay fields, the couple aim to build future housing for farm workers that draws on the form and function of their family home. “Housing everywhere is an issue in Washington, but on the islands, it’s maybe even a little worse,” said Evan. Another barn will be converted into a hybrid space for communal art studios, a gallery, classes and a farm store.

That means the old farm is keeping everyone busy these days, whether they’re realizing their vision of the future or tending to daily chores, or the kids are discovering new pastimes. (Their son has seven beehives while their oldest daughter sells eggs from her flock of fifty chickens.) It’s been important, said Inese, to slowly get to know the land of which the family has become stewards. “I don’t even like saying I own [the farm],” said Inese. “It takes time to learn it, and to start feeling like you are actually a part of it.”