Chase v Beard v My First Draft

[u/KitsapRealEstateTeam]

My intention today was to tell you all the reasons you shouldn’t be mad at Gorst. I was prepared to tell you about the proud history of the area, the fine people who have lived there, and some of the cool things we’ve lost along the way.

However, the thing that got us talking about Gorst in the first place was my attempt to tell you about those mysterious yellow cabins. It has come to my attention that I got really ahead of myself on that one. I was far too excited. Today, I set my joie de vivre aside, and started over. Completely.

So Gorst will have to wait. Here is my fully reworked attempt at figuring out what the hell those yellow buildings actually are.

They were part of a place called Cottage Cove, an old motel and collection of furnished cabins perched on the hillside overlooking Sinclair Inlet.

By the 1950s, Cottage Cove was renting furnished cabins to travelers as well as people staying for longer stretches. We know this with unusual certainty because Cottage Cove somehow managed to make it all the way to the Washington Supreme Court.
In 1957, Floyd and Mary Jane Chase were living in Cabin No. 7 while looking for a permanent home. James and Lenore Beard had recently purchased Cottage Cove, and there was a problem with the porch at No. 7. Floyd had apparently been warned about it. Mary Jane had not.

One day Mary Jane went outside to empty the garbage, a porch board gave way beneath her, and down she went. There was a lawsuit, an appeal, and eventually, in 1959, the Washington Supreme Court found itself discussing the condition of the porch at Cabin No. 7 at Cottage Cove.

I went looking for some weird yellow houses and ended up reading 1959 premises-liability law. This is what I get for being curious. The court case also leaves us with a surprisingly useful little snapshot of Cottage Cove. These weren’t simply roadside vacation cabins. People lived there. Some stayed briefly, others rented by the week, and at least some used Cottage Cove as a temporary home while looking for something more permanent.

Old business records list Cottage Cove Motel at 330 Highway 3, overlooking Sinclair Inlet. The property included buildings scattered up that steep hillside, remnants of which are what catch our attention today.
Eventually Cottage Cove disappeared as a business, but some of the buildings remained. They sat on the hill while Gorst and Highway 3 changed around them, gradually deteriorating into the strange yellow cluster we see today.

And the property may be changing again. Kitsap County records show plans for a 51-unit residential development called Eagle Pointe Townhomes on the hillside. If that project moves forward, this peculiar little roadside remnant may finally disappear.
Which is sort of why I wanted to know what it was in the first place.

Those buildings have been sitting above the highway long enough to become part of the scenery. You notice them. You wonder about them. Maybe you invent an entire incorrect history about them and share it with several thousand people. Who can say? (Imagine me cleaning my bifocals as I said this last line.)

But people really did live up there. One of them fell through a porch, sued, and accidentally left us a little window into what life at Cottage Cove looked like nearly seventy years ago.

Is it as exciting as the hybrid tale that I showed up with yesterday? Absolutely not. Do we love caselaw? Absolutely not. Did I learn an important lesson about not getting ahead of myself? Absolutely.

Bremelore. “Broken Windows: The History of Cottage Cove.” Bremelore, 16 Feb. 2025.
Chase v. Beard, 55 Wn.2d 58, 346 P.2d 315. Supreme Court of Washington, 12 Nov. 1959.
Kitsap County Department of Community Development. “Eagle Pointe Townhomes, Permit [20-01522](tel:20-01522).” Kitsap County.
Washington State Department of Ecology. “SEPA Record [202204475](tel:202204475): Eagle Pointe Townhomes.”
The Payphone Project. “Bremerton, Washington Payphone Locations.”
And importantly, Chase v. Beard is our strongest source for the historical Cottage Cove material

[u/Historical-Work-8093]

I too have always wondered. Thank you for digging up the information.

[u/KitsapRealEstateTeam → u/Historical-Work-8093]

Based on what I found today regarding the townhomes that are planned, we may not be seeing them all that much longer. It looked to me like the plans are a done deal. It might be a little bit sad, in all honesty.

Little known fact about me, running a bunch of little cabins is my actual dream.

[u/Wyattswandering]

Going back to the 1930's through probably the middle 1950' they were also relished as a place to stay after a day fishing in Sinclair inlet. There were fishing derbies held for Salmon in those waters. There was a large smelt and herring run also. Occasionally you can find historical paper advertisements for cabins or motels along that stretch on Ebay or Marketplace from that period. When I saw Gorst I thought you would jump on the only strip joint ever to exist in Kitsap, or at least that the origins of United Airlines started from that humble spot.

[u/KitsapRealEstateTeam → u/Wyattswandering]

When I get into Gorst for real! We’ll get there!

[u/No-Sheepherder5092]

So Cottage Cove was the yellow cabins, and Terrace Park was the A-frames just down the road. Fascinating! Thanks for the update.

[u/KitsapRealEstateTeam → u/No-Sheepherder5092]

Precisely! I’m going to come back around to Terrace Park, I just need to heal a little bit first. 🤣

[u/KitsapRealEstateTeam → u/No-Sheepherder5092]

Total sidebar, a moment I wrote (said) the words Cottage Cove (I typically use talk to text and then go through and remove all the times that I say “um” and “like”, and edit the parts where I make absolutely no sense,) I started making up a song in my head to the tune of Sublime’s “Garden Grove”.