Friday Harbor Town Award Celebrates an Old Friend

By Sandy Strehlou

On Wednesday, May 8th, the Town of Friday Harbor will award Jenny Prescott, owner of Acanthus Antiques, and the San Juan County Land Bank, Partners in Preservation Awards for their actions to preserve and rehabilitate the historic Lettie Carter Roark house on lower Argyle Avenue. The public is invited to come to the 5pm reception and awards ceremony at 460 Argyle.

Prescott is being honored for rehabilitation of the c1913 Craftsman house into a beautifully restored home for her business, Acanthus Antiques. The Land Bank will be honored for the organization’s foresight and contribution to the residents of Friday Harbor by purchasing the property in 2002 and attaching an historic preservation easement to the deed to protect it for perpetuity.

Each year the Town of Friday Harbor’s Historic Preservation Review Board honors the individuals and organizations that are helping to preserve Friday Harbor’s historic buildings, sites and unique sense of place.

The classic Craftsman house was built for newlywed Lettie Carter Nicholson and husband George Nicholson. It was a gift from her father, L.B. Carter, a prosperous Friday Harbor merchant. He established the successful Blue Front dry goods store on Spring Street, later replacing the original wood-frame store with a two-story department store known today as King’s Market. George Nicholson died during the Spanish Influenza epidemic, and Lettie later married a lively Irish merchant named Billy Roark, who followed L.B. as the store’s proprietor.

Other notable residents of the house include former Friday Harbor mayor, Jim Cahail, and his wife Mary Jean Cahail, former County clerk and the current board vice-president of the San Juan Historical Museum.

For more information about this year’s event contact Sandy Strehlou, 360.378.2810 or sstrehlou@fridayharbor.org.