So what exactly is agritourism?

Let me give you some background. I had the fortune of growing up in a large farm family in the middle of the formidable Canadian prairies and learned to work hard at an early age, taking for granted the freedom of the wide open spaces and the natural beauty that was all around. One day I overheard an inspiring first grade teacher inform my parents that I was “university material.” Born of homesteader stock who had pioneered with a strong DIY attitude, I was determined to leave the farm and seek my fortune in the city. My dad, who only had an eighth grade education, had a hard time processing why his second son would venture away from the family farm and pursue an education off in a distant place.

While working to put myself through college, I got interested in a career with the Canadian Mounties and signed up for six months of living in barracks with 30 like-minded troop-mates and learning police science. Providentially, after graduating from the RCMP Academy, I was sent to a place where Canadians retire and find idyllic ways to farm on Canada’s largest island, namely Vancouver Island. The West Coast is like the Garden of Eden. Everything grows with zest and the bounty of the land is all around. It was there that I developed a love for the land and determined with my new bride that some day, way off in the distant future, we would return and retire to a small farm where a working retirement would give real meaning to the golden years.

After a decade with the Mounties, I left to pursue a graduate degree in business. I switched careers and went into investment banking. After initially joining E F Hutton in Charlotte, 35 years later I’m now blessed to be with Edward Jones in Sequim. God has given me a wonderful wife and four incredible children who are married to industrious spouses, each of them having had a part in giving us 18 special grandchildren.

Around the turn of the century, while living in the Carolinas, a copy of the Wall Street Journal came across my desk and an article in the Real Estate section caught my eye. It featured Sequim and spoke of Californians buying up small parcels from former dairy farms that had been subdivided into five acre lots. It told of the famous “Blue Hole” where World War II pilots were able to navigate through the clouds and land their planes. This “rain shadow” encompassed the islands and the surrounding areas on the leeward side of the Olympic Mountains. I made contact with a realtor and the rest is history. We found an amazing five acre lot of hay land surrounded by the blue waters of the Salish Sea and snow-covered Olympic Mountains.

For our 25th wedding anniversary we had gifted ourselves a season pass to the nearby Biltmore Estate, the winter home of the Vanderbilts. My wife loved the quiet places where she could sit and crochet, whereas I loved to ride the hills and valleys on their amazing bike trails. I marveled at how this gem thrived with its agricultural and tourist-related businesses. Having just purchased our “retirement destination” my brain started dreaming and formulating plans for something of a similar focus but on a much smaller scale.

In the past three decades Sequim has become known as a lavender mecca for all things lavender, or as has been coined “America’s Provence”.

We initially thought that we would develop an orchard or a berry farm similar to those that I had seen on Vancouver Island, but after discovering lavender, it only made sense to have a small lavender farm. We built our Carriage House and made plans to transition from the South to the Pacific Northwest. A couple of years later, the adjoining five acre lot became available and was acquired to keep us from getting crowded out by our neighbors. While living in the South I marveled at the beautiful plantation style homes that were distinctively American in style. One such home, a 1930s replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, sat on a city corner lot with no view and was completely surrounded by trees. The high bluff and ocean view reminded me of the original setting for Mount Vernon. Being a history buff myself, why not replicate Mount Vernon in Washington’s namesake state as a B&B inn? Well we ventured out of our comfort zone with a bucket full of passion and were even able to trademark it as George Washington Inn.

Now how can we share the beauty of this 10 acre oceanfront panorama with others? We planted our first lavender plants shortly after constructing and opening the inn in 2008, incorporating this purple plant in the landscaping of our small farm and B&B. Subsequently the three-car garage of our Carriage House was converted into a farm store and we joined the local lavender association to work with other like-minded lavender farmers. Unfortunately the farmers and the crafters didn’t mix too well, and in January 2011 the farmers and their event director left to establish the Sequim Lavender Farmers Association. My wife and I left with the farmers and we all struggled to gain some clarity on the future of agritourism in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley. The lavender farmers pooled their resources and held the first successful international lavender conference that spring and were able to attract would-be lavender farmers from all over the country. The main speaker, Dr. Tim Upson (the esteemed co-author of a book that is regarded as an exhaustive manual on lavender) graciously came from London, England. Dr. Curtis Beus, the local Washington State extension agent who had written a treatise on agritourism (Agritourism: Cultivating Tourists on the Farm), was also a speaker. This conference became the impetus for the national United States Lavender Growers Association with their first 70 members signing up.

Was lavender marketing only going to be one weekend in July or was it the whole summer season?

Most of the farmers had mortgages and several had left their day jobs to eke out a living from lavender. I never had the courage to leave my day job, so for the next decade I was often commuting and managing our farm from the East Coast.

Someone has said that necessity is the mother of invention. I enjoyed cycling and had joined the Cascade Bicycle Club to connect with other cyclists in the area. Seeing that this bicycle club in Seattle was the nation’s largest statewide cycling association, why not find a way to bring cyclists out to our paradise and enjoy “America’s Provence” where the mountains roll down to the sea and lavender grows so well?

The Olympic Discovery Trail connected many of our farms throughout the valley. This would help to promote our iconic valley to eager cyclists seeking a great place to ride. I floated the idea of a Tour de Lavender to the other farms and with Scott Nagel’s help as event director that year, we launched the ride aided by a host of local cyclists. For several years the cyclist volunteers came together on our oceanfront porch and this ride gained some amazing traction under the early leadership of Tom Connolly, a retired Army Colonel who knew how to rally the troops. Since 2013, thousands of dollars have been raised through this ride to benefit the Olympic Discovery Trail, the Sequim Wheelers and to aid the marketing efforts of the lavender farms.

My amazing wife Janet makes all of our farm’s lavender products in the inn’s kitchen as she multi-tasks between the demands of the B&B inn and the farm. She also serves as bookkeeper and coordinator for the Sequim Lavender Farmers Association, having also served on several tourism-related boards and committees.

Farming isn’t for the faint of heart but unseen variables like weather, markets, labor, disease and pests all raise new challenges every year. Add people and tourists to that mix and you have no end of challenges. Today lavender farming in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley has seen three decades of history. Sequim has gained a new identity. Will it survive? That has yet to be seen.

Dan Abbott is co-owner of George Washington Inn and Washington Lavender Farm at 965 Finn Hall Road, Port Angeles, with events planned through the summer. Visit www.georgewashingtoninn.com for more information.