The old homestead - now known as the Bower House - was built around 1910 by the Reed Brothers (of the Reed Bros. Shipyard – still operated by Mori and Norine Jones). The house had a couple of owners before being sold to Charlie Bower in the early 1920s. Charlie had come down from Alaska as an engineer on John Reed’s boat, and fell in love with Jessie, the cook at the shipyard.

Charlie and Jessie developed the orchard and Charlie worked as a blacksmith. Jessie died in 1945, but Charlie continued living in the homestead until finally moving to Anacortes in 1962. He died there in April 1971 at the age of 87.

In the late 1960s he had sold the property to Donald McLachlan from Chicago, who had a place on Lopez Island and planned to move to Decatur. But he never made the move and in 1990 sold the property to a partnership of the current owners, who also acquired an additional 20 acres from the Johnson Brothers.

The partners named the property Whitecliff Farm and subdivided to create a total of six building lots of approximately two acres each. The remaining 58 acres of forest, meadow and shoreline are held in common and without possibility of further subdivision. During the last 15 years the homestead, barn and root cellar have been restored, a large fenced garden for fruit, flowers and vegetables has been developed, and a network of forest trails is nearly complete. Restoration of the orchard is an ongoing task.