Right, The Petersons today.

“Pete talked me into coming here for one year, and it’s been 36 of them,” said Lopez Island resident, Karen Petersen, about her architect husband. “We came as an adventure. We both made lists of what work we could do and we moved into the barn,” Karen said, referring to the only structure on the ten acres they purchased as a vacation get-away. “We’re still here and still living in the barn!”

The family learned about Lopez when Pete worked on some buildings for Camp Nor’wester.

“We knew the realtor we were riding around with was well-respected in the community because he waved at everyone and they waved back,” Pete said with a laugh. The couple moved to Seattle when Pete accepted work with The Bassetti Architects. They left their southern California home in a rapidly growing area with a burgeoning drug culture and sought a safe place to raise their family. After seven years, burn out and little time with their three young children, Pete felt it was time for a change.

“We moved here in 1973. I just thought if we lived here and I worked at home, I might have a relationship with my kids that I could never develop otherwise. It worked out although sometimes when I was deep in discussion with a client, they would burst in with emergencies like escaped piglets or a horse with colic.” Pete loved getting his hands in the mud and making pottery, but within the first year, he found that he could continue with architecture on Lopez.

“While public work excited me, I loved to do homes because I’m a nester and I love our home,” he said. His conversion of the barn attests to that. “Early clients became close friends. We had the same goals. California felt wrong to me, living in all that affluence in a world with people whose values I didn’t understand. This place is real.”

“Neither of us had a farm background,” Karen said. “We camped in the barn for two years before we moved. That was really fun. Can you imagine what our parents thought? We all learned about caring for animals when the kids became active in 4-H. Mary Jenison taught both girls to sew and we had lots of animals of every kind. If I could do it over again, we’d have more animals and no TV.” Building a pond provided summer swimming and winter ice skating. Karen substitute-taught and worked at Richardson Store.

“We camped with the 4-H at the county fair every year,” Pete adds. There was no doctor, medical clinic, pharmacy, EMTs or veterinarian on the island when the Petersens arrived.

“We’ve had long and close friendships with some of the old-timers. They connected us to a world that most people don’t have a clue about, that rural, depression era time.”

The couple met during a summer recess from college when Karen was a waitress in a cafe and Pete was working in a bakery nearby. He stopped in for some wakeup coffee before his early morning duties. The waitress, Pete said, “just sparkled, she was so happy and talking with everybody. I just looked at her and thought, I need that in my life,” Pete admits. An acquaintance they had in common talked with both of them separately about a person they should meet.

Pete is descended from cabinet-making Danes and with Karen’s solid and practical German heritage, both have thrived while creating and building their island life.

“We just kind of walked out on a limb,” Karen said. “We made a lot of our own food and our kids could do it if they had to. Knowing the old-timers gave a richness and diversity to all of our lives. We like how Lopez has changed with a choice in churches, and new services like Hospice and Home Support that helps people stay in their homes, more support for all of the arts, a wonderful library, the expanded medical clinic and pharmacy. Despite different interests, when push comes to shove everyone pulls together.”

Pete’s work on boards, committees and doing anonymous consulting on buildings has been rewarding. Both Petersens volunteer for Hospice, enjoy their separate book clubs, relish time with their grandchildren, appreciate their church, walk daily and continue to garden together—Pete tends the soil, Karen raises vegetables and flowers. A 200 pound bag of homemade sifted compost was a recent Christmas gift to their son. A new visitor found that difficult to understand, they explain with laughter.

Pete has reconsidered his old concern that any growth is bad.

“I look at the results. There are far more positive things than negative. I didn’t expect that. We came because it’s beautiful; we stay because it’s community.”

Pete and Karen Peterson