Although our long and obscure driveway keeps casual passers-by away from our door, I wasn't entirely surprised a couple of days ago to find an unknown woman standing on our patio peering down at the old house. It has happened several times in the years that we have lived here because people who are familiar with this place are drawn back by their memories. The woman who built it, Ruth Penington, was an art professor at the University of Washington. She bought the property in 1940 and used it as a summer get-away until she died in the 1990's. Lots of students and family members were invited here and she occasionally rented it to sailors stationed at the nearby navy base. This most recent visitor told me her husband had helped build the "new" wing in the 1970's and had brought her down then to show her the beautiful place he was working on. She also was a student of Ruth's at UW, and of Ramona Solberg, who was a Ruth protege. I never knew Ruth and the number of people who did is becoming fewer and fewer, so I was delighted to meet her. Her presence reminded me of the first time I was here and the powerful pull the house and the setting had for me.
It was a cold day in February when we learned there was a house for sale in this vicinity. It had been empty for about three years and was about to be torn down and replaced by something much more grand, but the owner, who had purchased the property from Ruth's nephew, changed his mind and put it back on the market. The doors were standing open, the roof was clearly not doing its job, and the whole place had an air of abandonment and neglect. It was hard to tell how old it was because the design was so contemporary, but there were tell-tale signs (like the light switches) that said it was much older than it looked (the original cabin was built in 1942). Even in its sad condition, it was charming. The windows, and there were so many! looked out towards the fabulous view of water and mountain, and let in lots of light even in the dead of winter. The rooms were pleasantly proportioned and rambled up and down over the topography of the hillside. One interior staircase was built into the rock of the island and ivy grew up the wall indoors. I loved it and I could tell that whoever had built it had a highly attuned aesthetic sense and had loved it too. Her hand was so strongly evident that I became quite curious about her and began to research her life.
If you are interested in metal-working and jewelry you have probably heard of Ruth Penington because she was very active and influential in those fields in the fifties and sixties. She was the head of the UW art department and a founding member of Northwest Designer Craftsmen, a large organization of local artists. Ramona Solberg was probably more famous as a jeweler, but she was taught by Ruth and was her friend. I called Ramona, who was then still alive, and another friend who was important in local art circles, Lamar Harrington, and asked them about Ruth and they each kindly spoke to me for quite a while. They both said that the other was really closest to Ruth, from which I gleaned that Ruth was not deeply intimate with anyone. I heard from more than one person (not Ramona or Lamar) that she was terrifying and my most recent visitor echoed that, saying that as a teacher Ruth was very scary. Philip McCracken, the noted sculptor, said she failed him in the one class he took from her. There were some articles in the Seattle Times about her, including one with a photo of her working in the studio of our house (the windows are unmistakable.) The UW still keeps pictures of some of her work, which was also contemporary in style, and incorporated objects she found around her. One necklace features stones from our local beach. She was a serious and lifelong artist who clearly drew inspiration from the setting we are lucky enough to share. She came here as often as she could for decades, but one day went into a local store and said she couldn't find her house and needed help to show her the way. After that she didn't come anymore, but her house still shouts her name. The place she made was a magnet for many people, and they still think about it and occasionally wander by.