Project Details Page

synopsis

When the State of Washington decided to build a new veterans home in Retsil, a community near Port Orchard, in 1907, John Charles Olmsted was invited to prepare a landscape design for the grounds. In the January 1908 preliminary plan he designed, Olmsted took advantage of the site’s sweeping views overlooking Port Orchard Bay and the distant mountains,

When the State of Washington decided to build a new veterans home in Retsil, a community near Port Orchard, in 1907, John Charles Olmsted was invited to prepare a landscape design for the grounds. In the January 1908 preliminary plan he designed, Olmsted took advantage of the site’s sweeping views overlooking Port Orchard Bay and the distant mountains, by locating the veterans home and the parade ground on the edge of the bluff. A village green extended inland from the parade ground, with an assembly hall at the far end, at the highest point of the slightly sloping site.

According to Olmsted’s plan, the hospital would have had its front entrance on the opposite side of the building from the central village green to orient the building toward the northwest-facing view. Olmsted placed the commandant’s house on a small point jutting out from grounds to the east of the parade ground, which offered views of mountains and water on three sides, and the cemetery on a second bluff across a low area to the east of the main grounds. He organized the rest of the buildings around curvilinear drives and walks.

There is no clear evidence that the Olmsted plan was implemented at the Washington Veterans Home. The main residential building and the cemetery are located in the general areas as they are on the 1908 plan, but the driveway to what was called the “Old Veteran’s Home” is aligned differently.

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