$17M deal to preserve treasured Turtleback

Turtleback Mountain, one of the most cherished and expansive landscapes in the San Juans, would be spared from development and opened to hikers if a $17 million sale goes through.

The Medina Foundation, a Seattle-based philanthropic organization, has decided to sell its private 1,578-acre tract on Orcas Island to a partnership of local and national conservation groups.

Although not the highest peak on Orcas, Turtleback has been the highest priority for conservationists, who for decades have talked about preserving it.

"Turtleback always has risen to the top not just because of its sheer size and ecological importance, but also because of its cultural value to this community," said Tim Seifert, executive director of the San Juan Preservation Trust, one of three groups in the partnership.

"We see the mountain every day. It looms over our lives."

For decades, hikers have trespassed to reach the top of Turtleback and take in vistas that stretch north to the Canadian Gulf Islands. Conservationists would build hiking trails and convert Turtleback to public land.

Turtleback became a symbol of friction between conservation and growth after the foundation put the property on the market last summer. While other mountain ridges in the San Juans have surrendered to luxury view homes, evidenced by the sprinkling of lights at night, Turtleback remains dark.

Rising to an elevation of 1,519 feet on the western side of the island, Turtleback was the exclusive hideaway of Weyerhaeuser executive and Medina benefactor Norton Clapp, who began assembling the property in the 1950s. Clapp had a small house built at the summit where he entertained family and friends.

Clapp, who died in 1995, bequeathed Turtleback to his foundation with instructions to not touch it for five years. In August 2005, Medina's board put Turtleback up for sale to raise money that could be used to further the foundation's mission — giving millions of dollars each year to Puget Sound-area social-service and educational programs.

"Both missions are being fulfilled in a very positive way with this transaction," said Tricia McKay, the foundation's executive director.

Although Turtleback was the foundation's most valuable asset, it was a drag on the nonprofit, costly to maintain but generating no income.

"We will now be able to put the dollars from this sale into income-bearing investments, which will give us more resources to support nonprofit causes," McKay said.

When the foundation announced it was offering Turtleback to the highest bidder, local conservation groups in the San Juans scrambled to try to buy it before a residential or resort developer could.

In less than a year, they raised $12.5 million — $10 million of it from the San Juan County Land Bank, a public program that voters established in 1990 to purchase land and conservation easements. The land bank is funded through a tax levied on purchasers of property in San Juan County.

The partnership, which is composed of the preservation trust, the land bank and The Trust for Public Land, has a goal of raising $6 million more by November — $4.5 million to cover the rest of the purchase price and $1.5 million to build the hiking trails and establish an endowment to fund management of the property.

"Turtleback Mountain is an iconic landscape, as important to the health and identity of the larger Puget Sound region as it is to the San Juan Islands community," said Roger Hoesterey, northwest regional director of The Trust for Public Land, a national conservation group.

Seifert said the $17 million offer came after Medina's broker informed conservationists that an undisclosed developer had submitted an $18.5 million bid to buy Turtleback. Ultimately, the foundation accepted the conservationists' lower bid.

"There certainly was a desire on our part to have the land preserved, if we could get fair market value for it, while not sacrificing our needs for revenues," McKay said. "The partnership's proposal is really solid and we're comfortable in its ability to close."

Turtleback is ecologically important for its groves of dry oak savannah and for its watershed that influences marine water quality in the area. It also has tremendous potential for recreation.

A single dirt road, blocked by a locked gate, leads from the mountain's base to what Clapp called his gazebo at the top of Turtleback. Although the private land is off-limits to hikers, many have climbed to the peak and sneaked into the gazebo, sometimes to live out a romantic fantasy.

Some trespassers have gone so far as to sign a book Clapp had set out for his invited guests:

"We came through the bathroom window. We made sure no one was there ... making love inside a circle of candles, heated by the fire and fueled by our love ... We are on top of the world!"

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com