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Rosario Resort, a popular stop for boaters in the San Juan Islands since the 1960s, was auctioned off for $5.45 million and closed as of October 20. The new owners have chosen to remain anonymous for now, but are apparently Fidalgo Island based boaters with experience and respect for the San Juans in general and Rosario in particular. They took possession around the end of October.
The specific future of the resort and marina is still open to speculation but long time employees are optimistic that the purchasers will be good for the resort and community, and say the county approved master plan for the property offers lots of potential. As for now, neither the resort nor the marina are taking reservations for visitors while the property undergoes renovations. Rosario, as a boating destination accessible to the public, began in the early 1960's when the 60 year-old mansion and 1300 acres developed by shipping magnate Robert Moran, were purchased by Gilbert Geisler. Geisler was the fourth owner and the first to develop the property as a resort. He and succeeding developers added dramatically to the old mansion and built separate hotel accommodations on the grounds. Part of that included opening dock space for guest boaters. Dick Hansen, the most recent IT manager for Rosario, worked on those docks in the summers of 1963 and 64. "We had a couple of finger docks then and it was packed. I remember one Fourth of July we had boats side-tied to each other five deep." "Boats were smaller then," he said, but they had their share of big boats. "John Wayne used to come in on his converted Navy boat and show his movies on the docks." Hansen also remembered another man with a converted PT boat "with one of those World War II submarine diving claxons. As he'd leave the docks he'd fire that thing off and get everyone's attention." The floating docks eventually expanded to 34 slips behind a stone breakwater. There was a separate dock for Kenmore Air seaplane traffic and, further around the bay, the original pier had transient space, dinghy docks, rentals, fuel and pump out. The resort also provided 24 mooring buoys. Dick Hansen's son, Eric, has had his father's old job on the docks the last two summers but his memories of Rosario go back all of his 18 years. He grew up on the property, living in one of the houses built by Moran for his brothers. Eric remembers Rosario through a child's eyes. "One year they had fireworks on Friday nights to attract business. Another time the crew of the sailing ship Lady Washington came in all dressed up as pirates. The resort employees built teepees on the lawn and acted as Indians. They had kind of a battle. It seemed real." Eric also remembers being allowed to kayak on the artificial pond and bring his friends to the pool. The resort was an active part of the community in his memory. Rosario sponsored art festivals and theater, and let his school use the pool for their eighth grade party. Islanders also biked and hiked around the resort's lakes and trails. Eric and his sisters take partial responsibility for the friendly deer that wander the grounds. They fed them during the winter and noticed that the tourists wanted to approach the deer in the summer. The kids opened a deer food stand as other kids might open a lemonade stand until someone explained you should not interfere with the diets of wild animals. Eric's last two summers on the docks included a 100 MPH cigarette boat, several mega yachts and a number of celebrities that Rosario employees will not name to maintain their clients' privacy. "There was one boat, however," said Eric, "that docked, called for a masseuse and room service, and the owner never left the boat." Moorage customers had privileges at the resort including use of the three pools, spa, showers, trash service, room service, and the ability to run charges against your "room." "We even used to have taxi service from the mooring buoys to the docks," said Gary Joseph, Moorage Master, "but we had to cut it out when the state said the kids driving the boat-taxi had to be licensed captains." Joseph and his cat, Baby, live aboard his 42-foot sloop Cross Winds at Rosario. Joseph is the latest in a line of colorful moorage masters at Rosario. Many boaters still remember "Brunhilda," who often directed boaters to their slips with a bull horn. Joseph says he expects the moorage to be kept open by the new owners. "If they shut all this down they'll lose their land-use permit." Christopher Peacock, the resort's well known musician, historian, and marketing manager since the 1980s agreed, to a point. "Someone will have to be kept on to watch it (the moorage) or it will just be blown away this winter. "But," he cautions, "nothing is certain at this point." Peacock, who plays the massive organ and century old Steinway for visitors, has seen the property closed and auctioned before. He is optimistic it will be open to the public again. The 100 year-old building was the creation of Robert Moran, a machinist who arrived in Seattle in the 1880s with a dime and a dream. Peacock's book, Rosario Yesterdays, describes how Moran rose from cook to mayor and by 1905 had the largest shipyard in Seattle. With his four brothers helping out, he won the first US Navy contract to build a battleship on the west coast. As they were finishing the ship, which created 2,000 jobs, Moran's doctors said he had a terminal heart condition and should retire. Moran took the diagnosis and a couple dozen of his best workers to Orcas Island, and had them build a 25,000 square foot mansion where he could rest until he died. They used boat building techniques and fittings throughout the mansion, roofed it in ship bottom copper and painted it with leftover ship bottom maroon paint. Robert lived through it all and added his own three story machine shop, pond, 2000 square-foot kids' playhouse and a hydroelectric dam that still partially heats the mansion using his DC powered heaters. Finding he was still alive, Moran added two smaller homes for two surviving brothers, English gardens, and a 100-foot ketch. Eventually Robert outlived his brothers, his wife, and the doctors who said he was about to die. He then gave huge tracts of Orcas Island to the State of Washington for a state park, built roads and bridges through it, and put the rest of the mansion and grounds up for sale in 1932. Being in the midst of the Great Depression, he sold it for a mere $50,000 including all the furniture, plus the biggest privately owned pipe organ on the West Coast. He then built a modest home elsewhere on Orcas Island, where he died in 1943 at the age of 86. The mansion, furniture, and 1300 acres passed through two other private hands before Gilbert Geisler bought it for $225,000 in 1960 and opened it as a resort. The last owners, Olympus Real Estate Partners, purchased Rosario in 1998 for around $7.5 million but profits have been scarce and they've been looking for new owners with capital to invest in the resort. Olympus and the San Juan County Commissioners coordinated to create a master redevelopment plan for the resort so new owners would have some idea of what they could do to improve its potential. The plan, says Peacock, is not a menu of options for the new owners but rather a set of guidelines. Each proposal will still have to face County requirements. The marina could expand to 165 slips behind a floating breakwater similar to that at Friday Harbor. New designs would accommodate more large boats than the three 100-foot spots Joseph says they can provide now. The orientation of the docks could also change by expanding off the pier that now holds the gas dock, and removing the current slip structure. There is also space in the plan to remove some of the man-made rock formations along the shore and allow nature to recreate itself there. Peacock says the published architect's drawings of the moorage are mere conjecture and there is no specific plan in place. The resort itself would probably renovate or rebuild the current guest rooms and turn some of the property into "shared ownership" condos that would provide the island and the community with a more consistent year round population and demand for facilities. The plan includes requirements to maintain and improve the original mansion which is on the national historical register and to ensure good stewardship of the environment of the area. Orcas Island and San Juan County have a vested interest in seeing the resort flourish. Recently, Rosario has directly provided about 100 full time, and another 100 part time, jobs to the community, plus using services of dozens of island businesses. They worked hard with Olympus Real Estate Partners, the previous owners, to ensure there was a viable plan in place before the auction. Executing that plan could enhance boating in the San Juans. ...back to 48° North title page.
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