1005 Evergreen Point Rd
Medina, WA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - James G. Eddy House and Grounds

Statement of Significant:

The James G. Eddy House and Grounds are significant because of their association with an early day lumberman who originated the concept that selective cross-breeding could produce improved varieties of trees for use by the forest products industry. His founding of the Eddy Tree Breeding Station was a visionary act, and the institute has since made significant discoveries that have received international acceptance in the industry. The house and grounds as they exist today represent the personal horticultural and architectural legacy of this unusual and farsighted "lumber baron."
James Garfield Eddy came from one of the oldest timber families in the United States. One of his ancestors, Jonathan Eddy, founded the town of Eddington, Maine, on the Penobscot River, and the family operated sawmills there for several generations. His grandfather also owned sawmills, as well as clipper ships sailing out of Bangor, Maine. In 1860, when Maine's resources began to wane, the grand father and his son Franklin moved to Michigan "following the timber," and established a large mill in Bay City. Franklin's sons were born there, John in 1873 and James in 1881.
The Eddy boys thus became familiar with the woods, the mills and the timber business at an early age. After completing their education-- John at Harvard, James at Princeton-- they came west and in 1903 purchased the Port Blakely Mill Company on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, along with David E. Skinner, an associate of John's from the Bay City days.
From Michigan to Washington, James Eddy was able to experience for himself the vast stretches of logged over land that followed the lumber industry west. He was the only one of the early lumber barons who recognized that natural regrowth would never be sufficient to replace harvested timber and that a scientific method for breeding and improving forest species would have to be devised. In 1918 he contacted Luther Burbank about the possibility of producing better forest trees through breeding experiments. Although Burbank was reluctant to encourage breeding experiments with such slow-growing genera as conifers, he invited Eddy to join him at his Santa Rosa nursery. Together they spent several years exploring the potential of Eddy's unusual vision, aided by such eminent scientists as Professor Ernest B. Babcock, a far-thinking geneticist from the University of California.



In the fall of 1923, Eddy appeared before the Select Committee on Forestry of the U.S. Senate at its public hearing in Seattle in order to persuade the senators of the need for a station to experiment with breeding better forest trees. Despite the interest he aroused, financial aid was not forthcoming.
Since he felt so strongly that the need was urgent, Eddy decided to establish and finance--with his own funds--a research station to breed improved forest trees.
In 1925 he purchased a parcel of 82 acres located about four miles east of Placerville, California, on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The site was chosen because its climate and changes in elevation allowed a long breeding season, so many different trees from all parts of the world could be grown there, and the products of the station could be tested under a wide variety of environmental conditions. Fairly early it was decided to restrict the experiments to pines, and by 1931 the Eddy Tree Breeding Station was the most complete arboretum of pines in the world.
James Eddy continued to fund the station all through the 1920's, including the construction of a much-needed administration building at the end of the decade. By the early 1930's, however, in the midst of the Depression, he found it increasingly difficult to maintain his financial support, though his keen scientific interest never waned. After a move to seek an endowment as a non-profit organization failed, the station--renamed the Institute of Forest Genetics--was transferred to the U.S. government in 1935 and has been administered the U.S. Forest Service since that time. In essence, James Eddy made a gift to the people of the United States of all the property of the institute plus all the funds he had invested in its support for 11 years--a sum in excess of $250,000.
The foundation of the station was a visionary act, and the continued support of it throughout his lifetime was a labor of love. James G. Eddy's contribution to forest genetics, and by extension to the entire lumber industry and to world ecology, cannot be overestimated. Experiments conducted at the institute have resulted in several hybrids of exceptional quality. Eminent scientists were attracted, experimental models were developed, and botanists and geneticists were trained in the mechanics of tree breeding. As the first foundation of its kind in the world, the Eddy Tree Breeding Station was a seminal institution in the development of forest genetics.
At the same time in the mid-1920's that James Eddy was establishing the tree breeding station, he purchased an apple orchard on the east

shore of Lake Washington, intending it as the site of his family home. Just as he participated fully in the planning of his scientific institute, so he worked closely with the builder of his house, Howard Wright, Sr., and the designer of his gardens, Otto Holmdahl.

The large but unpretentious mansion, with its spacious dayrooms, service wings, handsome interior millwork and heavy shingle siding, is reminiscent of the Eddy family's New England heritage. Located at the end of the long private drive from the public road, the house occupies a small portion of the remaining grounds on the southern half of the property. The large area of commonly-held land represents the remains of the extensive landscaping scheme envisioned by James Eddy in collaboration with Otto Holmdahl.

An interesting figure in his own right, Holmdahl was one of only three landscape designers living and practicing in the Puget Sound area at this time. Eastern specialists, such as the Olmsted Brothers, were called in for large projects and some estates. Eddy, however, was probably attracted to Holmdahl because of his sympathy for native plant material and his interest in a regional landscape idiom. Born in Sweden and trained as a naval architect, Holmdahl came to Seattle in the early 1920's and quickly established himself as an expert plantsman. He practiced landscape design into the 1960's and, while the major part of his work was residential, he also served as the chief local designer for the grounds of Seattle's World Fair of 1962.
The informal nature of the Eddy Garden attests to Holmdahl's interest in the naturalistic tradition of English landscape design, while the extensive use of conifers and some unusual specimens indicate that James Eddy himself played an active role in the planning of his personal environment.
The James G. Eddy estate is significant because of its association with a pre-eminent figure in Washington history, and it is exceptional be- cause the grounds reflect the specific interest of this pioneer in experimental tree breeding. Not all of the original landscaping elements remain, and those which do have undergone some changes. But we must remember that gardens are living organisms, with death and rebirth a natural occurrence. The mature specimens of trees and shrubs are those planted by James Eddy fifty or more years ago. In this respect, both the house and grounds are a living testament to one of the most visionary men of the Pacific Northwest.