It’s clearly time for the Mukai farmhouse to change hands, and its owner should have taken King County up on its offer to purchase the property.
The Mukai farmhouse and garden is an important place to preserve. It’s a piece of the island’s Japanese-American history as well as its agricultural history. The Mukais ran a successful strawberry growing and packing business, and many have called their home just outside town a marrying of two cultures — an American-style farmhouse set off by a traditional Japanese garden. Mary Matthews, a former islander, saw the significance of this site years ago. In what many considered a visionary effort, she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her nonprofit, Island Landmarks, to purchase the house and garden. She successfully got it declared a King County landmark and a site on the National Register of Historic Places.
But Matthews’ vision to restore the property and open it as an interpretive center — a vision for which public agencies gave her money to purchase it — has not come to fruition. Years later, she and her husband now live in Texas and seldom seem to visit. The house and garden are in need of significant restoration work — work Matthews has said she’d like to accomplish but doesn’t have the funds for. It wasn’t opened to the public at all this year that we know of. And it’s still surrounded by a deer fence that King County ordered Island Landmarks to remove this summer. The property seems largely ignored.
For some time, Matthews has said she’s ready to sell the farmhouse to an entity that can properly steward it. That’s why it’s baffling to learn that Island Landmarks could not come to an agreement to sell the property to King County.
King County has significant resources and its own historic preservation program. The county has proven it can steward other historical properties, such as the Clise Mansion at Marymoor Park. The county also has a troop of dedicated islanders — the Friends of Mukai — standing in wait to help restore and manage Mukai and do education around it. Island Landmarks is currently battling the Friends group in court, but the Friends have helped facilitate a solution that seems to be the best for both parties. With King County ownership and the Friends’ help, the house could one day become the interpretive center that Matthews dreamed of.
It’s due time for the Mukai property to be passed on to a new owner, before it falls further into disrepair, and King County seems a perfect fit. It’s not clear why Island Landmarks didn’t take the county up on its offer. Matthews wouldn’t comment, but a top county official said the county “bent over backwards” to come to an agreement. Whatever the holdup, a trial isn’t scheduled until May, so there’s still time for a settlement. Island Landmarks should reconsider and try to negotiate a sale of the Mukai property to King County, paving the way to restore this important place.
