Had enough of the world? Want to get away from traffic and noise and people? Buy an island. About a mile offshore from Anacortes is 6.76 acre Young Island. One cabin. History that stretches back to the 1890s; though the first people probably touched it thousands of years earlier. The entire island, solitude, and the bare basics for only $1,200,000.
The very basic of bare basics. Buy an island and leave behind all of those civilized complications like cars and committees - and also leave behind power and water and sanitation. Over a million dollars and all you get for a house is a cabin that skips descriptions like quaint or cute and hangs on the rough side of rustic. But, hey, maybe that's exactly what you need.
Puget Sound has hundreds of islands. Only a few are popular enough for ferries. Many more are lucky if they have marinas. The majority are rocks that disappear with rising tides. In the middle though, are goldilocks islands, big enough to live on and small enough to own. Young Island is one of those but you have to bring your own boat, and find a place to tie it up.
If you're going to leave the cabin as is, great. If, however, you want something more modern you'll either have to hire boats or barges, ship in craftsmen and their tools, and haul in the appliances. Of course, if you have any money left over after spending $1.2M for the island, maybe you'll just airlift a completed house after someone's built a foundation. Or, go old school and single-handedly build a house from the materials already ashore. Any way you do it will be worth a story in the paper (and here as an Extreme Makeover.)
The island isn't totally uninhabited. You'll find crowds of refugees: geese, seals, hawks, etc. They live there, or migrate through. You may live there, or just use it as a refuge too. Seattle to Anacortes is a 90 minute drive, traffic permitting. The ride to the island, well, that part you have to figure out yourself. Maybe you can skip the car and sail there direct from Seattle, in which case, who cares how long it takes? You might even beat the traffic.
· Young Island [Zillow]
Written by Tom Trimbath