It all started in 1907 when Otto Kroger bought 20 acres near present day Tieton. I won't bore you with all 105 years of history but here is the condensed version as it pertains to this land. Otto brought his family here from Alaska and they settled on the 20 acres. His only daughter, Lilas, ended up marrying a guy named Ray Rader and they bought a "short ten" acres (less than ten due to the curve of the earth) adjacent to Otto's original 20 acres. Eventually, Lilas' son, also named Ray, acquired the land from Lilas. Lilas lived in the house on the northeast corner of the property until she died and that small 0.5 acre lot was sold out of the family. Ray and his wife, Onoto, lived in the house on 0.75 acres in the northwest corner of the property until they died in 2010 & 2011. The remaining 8.05 acres was sold in 2007 to a couple from the west side of the mountains. They were planning on building a house and doing who knows what with the rest of the 8 acres. As we all know, the economy took a dive and needless to say they were unable to do build, and did nothing with the land.
In 2010 when I moved up here to start teaching I looked at that land and thought that it was a waste of perfectly nice land. At that time I didn't even know the family connection with the land but thought that it would be nice to own that property since it is adjacent to Rich and Karen's property (Otto's original 20). Life moved on and I often thought of the property but was too busy to do anything about it. After discussing with Nathan numerous times about how perfect it would be to own that land, in April, I looked up the owner's phone number on the Internet and handed a ringing phone to Nathan. He luckily didn't have to talk to anyone but he left a message asking if they owned 8 acres in Tieton. Amazingly, the owners called us back and they were interested in selling the property. We were ecstatic, I might have even jumped on the bed. The owners wanted to discuss a price and call us back the next day. Nathan spent the entire next day trying to get info on loans and figure out what we needed to do to make this happen. When they called us back and told us their asking price we were dumbfounded. They wanted $120,000 for that patch of weeds that they bought for $75,000, and the county assessed at $63,000. We tried to negotiate but they were unwilling to consider a more reasonable price. We tried to forget about the land and pretend like we had never contacted the sellers.
It was hard but we were finally feeling okay about walking away from the land because of that ridiculous price. Then, out of the blue about three weeks later, we got a call from the owners apologising for being unreasonable and wondering if we were still interested in purchasing the property. Nathan did the negotiating and we settled on a sale price of $85,000. Once that was agreed on Nathan spent the next few weeks meeting with lawyers and lenders. The longest part of the process once we agreed on the price was getting a land appraisal for the loan. Once the appraisal was in everything moved very fast. Just short of three months from our original spontaneous phone call we are ecstatic to be the owners of those glorious 8 acres.
Even though it is only official today, Nathan has been working very hard out there, mowing 3 ft high weeds, cultivating the ground, and fixing the neglected irrigation system. It is amazing to see water running on that parched land. We can't wait to get the ground ready to plant 8 acres of apples next spring. It is so awesome to own our own land especially a piece of property with a little family history. The Kroger's have been in Tieton forever and I guess we are here to stay.
Click on the photos below to see some panoramic views of our property!
View from the southeast corner.
View from the south.
View from the west.
1 comment:
That's so awesome! I am glad you guys were able to purchase the land, and at a good price!
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