History

A mature maple stands sentry at the entry to the San Juan Passage community. Rescued from an old estate, transplanted onsite at great expense, the red-leafed Bloodgood Japanese maple is a signature tree, one intended to make a statement. It says come in, step back in time, re-establish roots in a new kind of small-town neighborhood.

The welcoming tree is almost a century old. So are the principles driving the design of this sustainable seaside community, where homes are built ship-tight, picket fences meet wide sidewalks, gabled roofs peak like sails and all views point to the sea.

"People are harkening back to those values again, to that cohesiveness of neighborhood. There is a real yearning for that," says Russ Lindquist, Gilbane Senior Development Manager.

On the nearby beach, knee-high in the saltwater, stand a clump of pilings where cormorants stand and spread their wings. The pilings once supported sprawling salmon canneries that gave birth to a funky 1890s community. So great was production at the Fidalgo Island Packing Company, established in 1894, that it earned Anacortes a reputation as "the salmon canning capital of the world."

The boom didn't last. Neither did plans of entrepreneurial pioneer Amos Bowman, who, in the 1870s, staked land at the site with the idea of founding a great port to rival San Francisco. He called it Ship Harbor City. Bowman ended up moving his ambitions a few miles east, and renaming his new city — laid out Boston-style — after wife Anna Curtis, adding a little Spanish flair to come up with "Anacortes."

That was 1877. At the same time, across the country on a different coast, Bob Gilbane's great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant named William Gilbane, was putting in motion ambitions of his own. In 1873, William had joined forces with his brother Thomas to found a carpentry and contracting shop in Rhode Island. By the time Anacortes began to take shape, the shop was already building on a reputation for excellence. Some of the homes the brothers built are now on the National Historic Register.

The company founded by the Gilbane brothers is now a multifaceted global enterprise with annual revenues that top $3.5 billion. Its staff numbers more than 2,000. But one thing has never changed from those early days, and that is the ethos of this family-run business: Build it right, build it to last, build something worth preserving for the future.