Airpark Living

I was invited to write something about “airpark living” aka “living with your plane”. It’s a fine lifestyle for someone who is an airplane “geek” and/or wants handy light plane transport from their garage/hangar for sure. One might pay a premium to indulge in such real estate holdings, … or maybe not. I can speak with some experience … with 30 years of said lifestyle in 3 different locations.

I was also a “geek” … and loved the light plane ownership …with easy access at home.

Background: As a young, single flight crewmember for United Airlines (age 23), I came to be based in the SEA area. I was, at some point, informed of the Pacific NW option of homeownership airpark properties based on cockpit conversations among crew on trips with (“wealthy”) Captains. More than one of them was speculating that airpark homes would be the thing of the future, and they were buying building lots as investments. The airport/airpark names were CREST, SHADY ACRES, EVERGREEN, SOUTH PRAIRIE, and more. I was an apartment dweller at the time and could only aspire to home ownership when my pay would be advanced by seniority and promotion.

As it turned out, I became acquainted with some contemporary airline colleagues (young single guys) who heard the same cockpit conversations. We found out that there was a solo vacant home for rent at Crest Airpark (now S36) … and we were off to the races. That was 1969 … and we enjoyed the airpark “wilderness” for about 6 months. I called it “wilderness” since Crest was way out in the woods, …not much civilization nearby at that time. Most of Crest property was unplatted but slow work was in progress to develop east and west sides for homesites. The property owner/developer (a family operation) used the airport office as a real estate office… with a map of the plats. The Knechtel family was “financing” potential buyers. My roommate signed up about the time the owners wanted their house back.

So, my roommate soon soured on the idea of this property and I bought his interest… something like $1500 equity and $150 bucks a month, $6500 total. This was 1970. To shorten the story, here’s the evolution of my life at Crest Airpark: In 1971, I built a hangar with apartment. In 1972, I latched onto a nice lady… who obviously would need a proper house, so we built one adjacent to the hangar in 1973. Life was good with lots of flying and social connections… and new homes being built with flying families moving in (congenial neighbors). Despite general regional malaise (Boeing layoffs, fuel crisis, Viet Nam), life at Crest Airpark was good.

There was an informal HOA early on but mainly we had an agreement for airport access (20 years) as part of the original land purchase. We lived there until 1978. There were rumors that the family was selling the airport which consisted of airstrip and commercial corner, fuel, tiedowns, hangars, etc.

I was accepting a promotion which meant a domicile move to Cleveland. I was primed for this… having learned of a nice airpark development within commuting distance to the Ohio airport. The Crest house got sold easily. We designed and built a new house (again), hangar attached this time. This airpark arrangement had a commercial strip, fuel, hangars and tiedowns. The adjacent homes with rights-of-way to the airstrip paid $15/month per airplane for access. There was no HOA since we had no common ownership. Again, we enjoyed the ambience, camaraderie and the socialness of our community near Wadsworth Ohio. The airstrip was WELTZEIN SKYPARK, now 15G. And it was handy to my airline base at CLE.

The CLE era was boom then bust for United. There was a big industrial sag in the early 1980’s. Our region earned the nickname “rustbelt”. I promoted myself out of CLE base and left Ohio with a pilot assignment back in Seattle. It took time to sell the Ohio property but we got clear of it eventually. No one goes to Cleveland area to enjoy the climate so the buyers were few… and buyers with airplanes even fewer.

This began a period of 20 years when we did not live in an airpark or have home access to airstrip.

Viola’… after a 36-year career with United Airlines, I decided to retire slightly early. We lived in Denver area at the time and had enjoyed the high country … even owning horse property and a ski-condo in Breckenridge for a while.

Without local employment, there was no reason to remain in Denver area. My wife and I discussed possibilities of moving … and came up with 3 attributes that might be worth buying into. 1) waterfront, 2) horse property, 3) airpark(again). It seems that we were led back to Pacific NW … and Sequim area specifically based on real estate ads in aviation trade journals.

That’s how we acquired airpark house #3 in summer 2003. Did I mention that I got a post-retirement job in Korea at that time? The joke was… that we moved from Denver to Sequim so that I could be close to work. The RAKES GLEN (WA59) property met our attributes, two out of three… the horsey part, and the airpark part.

We actually skipped the horsey part, … despite having 5 acres of grass. I commuted to/from Seoul Korea for 82 months. I built a Harmon Rocket… with a lot of help from some pro’s. Fortunately, my wife Alliree liked to ride a mower and cut the grass… for most of our 20 years in residence there. The airpark was conceived to use the airstrip as a street (or vice versa). We had an appropriate HOA to take care of our common access…which was the gated street. The gate made us seem like an upper-crust property but the practical aspect of success here was our small population (10 owners) and minimal ground traffic and minimal air traffic… which allowed low-risk traffic mix on our 1600’ airstrip. The street was our lifeline for autos, FedEx deliveries, dog-walkers, and invited guests.

By now, I regret to say we have “aged-out” of the flying community. It was especially great to sell our “treasure” to another aviation-minded family who can add value to RAKES GLEN AIRPARK for years to come. We live nearby in a retirement community. I can visit any time and feel good about borrowing fruit from the orchard that we planted 20-some years ago.

Airpark Living Summary: Best part… if you are at the airport, pull the ship out of the hangar… and forgot your keys to the plane… well guess what?

John Meyers Sequim, WA

June, 2026