Most Islanders know the house well — a beige-colored split-level on 87th Ave. S.W., where a man was gunned down on an otherwise quiet August evening two-and-a-half years ago.

At the time, it was a shared house, where Islanders — mostly young people — could find rooms at affordable rents. After Jon Kunkel, the owner, was jailed and charged with first-degree murder, the house ended up in the hands of one of his friends, who turned it into a kind of garrison, with an imposing fence, towering floodlights, exterior cameras and a sign that warned passersby they were being filmed.

The house is now under new ownership and is undergoing a top-to-bottom facelift.

And Kunkel is about to stand trial.

To those whose lives were affected by the murder, both events suggest a painful chapter is nearing an end.

“I can’t wait to get it going and have it done,” said Diana Childers of the trial. Her husband Ron Childers was shot dead in the home on Aug. 19, 2007, one week short of the couple’s first-year anniversary. Kunkel has been charged with first-degree murder for the slaying.

“It’s a big relief to know it’s actually going to happen,” she added.

Kelly Chess, a tenant in the house at the time of the shooting and the one who searched for Childers’ pulse moments after he heard gunshots rip through the house, said he too was glad the trial was about to get under way. “It’ll get this all past us,” he said.

As for the house, a neighborhood eyesore for the last couple of years, Childers said she was thrilled to learn a family man with five children had recently bought it.

“That house needs good in it,” she said. “It needs good.”

Kunkel’s trial begins next week in King County Superior Judge Helen Halpert’s courtroom in Seattle, when defense attorneys and prosecutors will argue pre-trial motions and select a jury. Witnesses are expected to take the stand the following week.

Kunkel’s public defender, Marian Naden, could not be reached for comment, but it’s believed she’ll argue that Kunkel shot Ron Childers in self-defense. Kunkel, 25, admitted to the shooting immediately after it happened but said he did so because Childers was about to lunge at him with a sword.

The prosecution, which will call 20 to 25 witnesses, is expected to argue that Childers’ death was not self-defense but pre-meditated murder. When the King County Prosecutor’s Office sought $2 million bail, Jeffrey Dernbach, a deputy prosecutor, wrote in a court document that Kunkel “staged the scene to appear as if he acted in self-defense.”

Days before, he noted, Kunkel had brandished a shotgun at a neighbor, yelling at her to get off of his property. After Childers’ death, meanwhile, detectives found Kunkel’s computer logged onto a Web site page titled “10 Great High Explosive Mixtures.”

According to court documents, prosecutors believe Kunkel shot Childers due to a mounting debt Childers owed him. Childers had been a tenant in another home Kunkel owned; all told, charging papers show, Childers owed Kunkel $5,800.

The slaying is being fiercely debated on a Web site that hosts discussions about various current events; 102 comments have been posted about the incident. One commenter, claiming his post was a statement from Kunkel, said, “Jon wants everyone to know he looks forward to trial to prove all these liars wrong.”

The post also says Childers was high on drugs and alcohol at the time and had been threatening Kunkel and stealing from him. “(Kunkel) has also seen video proof of detectives tampering with evidence,” the post says.

Kunkel, unable to post the $2 million bail, has been in jail since he was arrested in December 2007. Should he be convicted, he faces a minimum of 25 years behind bars, Dernbach said.

Most murder cases take around 18 months to go to trial. Asked why Kunkel is about to stand trial more than two years after his arrest, Dernbach said it was because of “the extensive forensic testing” investigators undertook as well as the fact that Kunkel started out with a private attorney and then switched to public defenders.

Meanwhile, on Vashon, the split-level home above Ellisport where Childers lost his life is under new ownership.

Blair Collins, whose father, Mike Collins, chairs the Vashon Park District’s board, bought it at a bank auction in November for $150,000, county records show. Last week, Collins, who lives with his wife and a blended family of five children in Brookings, S.D., was at the house with a work crew, engaged in what he called a “complete remodel.” Collins purchased the home sight unseen; last week was his first visit.

Friendly and open, he escorted a visitor through the empty, cavernous house, where the kitchen had been stripped of all its appliances and workers were spraying the walls with white paint.

He’s undecided about the house’s future, he said. He might rent out a portion of it, saving the downstairs for his family when they come to Vashon for extended visits. Or he might sell it, he said.

Either way, he’s happy for now to own a house on Vashon, less than a mile from his sister’s home. His mother, who passed away recently, loved Vashon; that, too, has connected him to the Island, he said.

“My mother was very happy here,” he said. “I feel like my mom would have liked for the kids to enjoy Vashon.”

Collins knows about the house’s history. “It’s totally unfortunate,” he said.

But at the same time, he added, he doesn’t believe the house should be left in a perpetual state of disrepair because of Childers’ death. “The house didn’t do it.”

He wanted a house on Vashon, and this is the first one that’s come along that he could afford, he added.

“It’s a nice lot. It’s a great location. It’s a nice neighborhood,” he said.

When he first walked into the house last week and took in the scene — piles of debris — he realized, he said, “that this was a house that needed a lot of love.”

“We’re going to give the house a new life,” he added.

Neighbors have noticed the work unfolding at the house and said they’re pleased that what had felt like a blight on their closeknit community was being transformed.

Yvonne Zick, who lives nearby, said she looks forward to the day when she can direct people to her home by saying she lives near KVI Beach rather than the house where a man was killed.

“Every time I drive by there, I look at that house, and it hurts,” she said.

“I’m so pleased that someone bought that house and there won’t be this hole in the neighborhood anymore,” she added.