Preserving History: 110-year-old home returns to market after restoration

PLAIN – A 110-year-old home built by the oldest living pioneer family in Plain is refurbished and back on the market. 

The home is the second of three homes built by William Wesley Burgess, or W.W. Burgess. According to “Greater Lake Wenatchee Area History” by Rollie Schmitten, W.W. Burgess left Iowa in 1888, finding work at the Newhall sawmill on Orcas Island. Eventually he came to Eastern Washington looking for a homestead site, where sites were still available. In 1893, he came up to Beaver Valley and purchased a homestead from the valley’s only resident, John Matthews. 

Shortly after, W.W. Burgess returned to Orcas Island to find a wife, Barbara Elizabeth Oleson Gaasland, who had just immigrated from Bergen, Norway. The two moved permanently to the Burgess homestead in 1895. As his family grew, W.W. Burgess built a larger log cabin. In 1913, he built a sawmill, which ran until 1928.

According to W.W. Burgess’s great-grandson Bill (W.E.) Burgess, W.W. Burgess lived in the log cabin and used the sawmill to cut the wood needed for a second home across the street in 1914. That second home, while owned under a different name (Willet), stayed in the family until it was sold in 2023.

The historic home was purchased and refurbished by Karen Dickinson, a descendant of another homestead family that settled along Lake Wenatchee around 1908.

“I was just tickled or thrilled that it's been saved…I figured if they sold it, a lot of people would just push it together and burn it,” said Burgess. 

Dickinson has a background in restoring historic homes, including her own family’s property, which she now operates as a wedding venue. 

“[It was] another property like this, where it's got some history and change has gone on, but it has also never been out of the family, and several people told me, just push it over. Here's a match. Clean up your property. Just burn it. Burn all of it,” said Dickinson.

When the Burgess home went on the market, Dickinson had already been contemplating retirement. She watched as it sat unoccupied for months, periodically checking the listing and coming to look at the house. Eventually, she decided to take it on.

“It's just in incredible shape. It's straight and true. It's sitting on its good foundation. The walls are solid,” said Dickinson. “I thought, ‘I can get this done in like, six months. Yeah, that was a year ago…But that's okay. It's been really worth it.”

The house was outfitted with modern necessities such as a full kitchen, insulation and a finished attic, but its characteristics remain largely the same. The original tub was hauled upstairs, with Dickinson belaying it as others pushed it. The home is also still decorated with original trim and flooring, believed to be handcrafted by W.W. Burgess himself. 

“You don't find vertical grain for trim of this quality…It's just impossible. It doesn't exist. And then [combine] that with the craftsmanship that they put into it,” said Dickinson.

The house is also surrounded by the necessities of the past, such as old sheds that held enough wood for winter, and what Dickinson suspects may have been an outdoor kitchen. The large and cold basement reveals a storage room for canning, a butcher block and meat locker, and a hand dug well. 

“If you didn't have a water source, you had a hand dug well. When I was growing up as a kid, I thought that's how you had water, because you had a hand dug well,” said Burgess.

Now, the home is back on the market for $1,195,000. While the home may no longer be in the hands of the Burgess descendants, Dickinson is hopeful it will be embraced by someone who understands its unique history and significance, while adding their own chapter to its story.

“It may be that it just launches off into the future in the hands of somebody else entirely. But we just hope that they will love it as much as it deserves, and it's going to be a unique person that would pick this up. They'll certainly be in the center of Burgess Valley, what we call Beaver Valley,” said Dickinson.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media