SEQUIM – It’s been a long time coming, but the new home of Sequim Museum and Arts is set to open on Saturday, July 6 at 11:00.
The museum has been housed since 1976 in what used to be the post office building, but the dream has always been to build on land donated by Albert Haller along N. Sequim Way directly across from the high school.
Executive Director Judy Stipe says she and a dedicated staff of volunteers have been working long hours to get the museum ready for the Grand Opening.
“We’re crazy. We’re crazy. We’re about 95% done, but we’re absolutely crazy. We’re working 12 hours a day. So all the locals have helped us and we have a big big farm exhibit. We have a fabulous logging exhibit. The Tribe has a big presence. We just, we have this amazing cornucopia of everything. Eventually many of these things will be interactive.”
Entirely privately funded, the barn-style building fits in well with the property that was once a dairy farm. Stipe says the real impact of the design is what’s on the inside, something they’ve gone to great lengths to keep secret until opening day.
“Yeah, it’ll be a total surprise when the public walks in. I even won’t let the Gazette take pictures inside. One thing that I really want you to know is, my biggest accomplishment here would be we got much of the recycled wood from the old Sequim Elementary School that opened in 1949. Now this is old growth fir. We had them cut, we had community service people come and take the nails out, and then Larry Somerville slabbed them end to end and we lined the walls with them, and they are incredible.”
The Grand Opening will feature a ceremony that has deep roots in the Dungeness Valley, but hasn’t been seen here for a long time.
“On that first day we will do a short introduction, and then the Masons will be laying a cornerstone, which they haven’t done in Sequim in quite a while, and it is a beautiful ceremony. The Grandmaster from the state of Washington comes out. And one of the reasons the Masons have been so supportive and strong with me is, I’ve known Mason’s all my life, our neighbors, everybody helps each other. So it was important to me that they lay a cornerstone here.”
The Grand Opening of the new Sequim Museum and Arts building is Saturday, July 6 at 11:00 am, 544 N. Sequim Ave.
Photo courtesy of City of Sequim.