San Juan Preservation Trust Buys 217-acre Vendovi Island

Vendovi Island, sold to the San Juan Preservation Trust for $6.4 million

The San Juan Preservation Trust has purchased Vendovi Island, the third largest island under single private ownership in the entire San Juan archipelago. The acquisition ensures that this 217-acre island will remain permanently protected from development.

The $6.4 million purchase price was raised from anonymous private benefactors, including $3.0 million in donations and a $3.4 million bridge loan. The Preservation Trust is now actively fundraising to pay off this loan.

Vendovi Island, located in Skagit County, had been listed for sale at $14.5 million before the owners attempted to sell the property at a well-publicized auction held in September in Seattle. The San Juan Preservation Trust submitted the highest bid at that auction ($3.3 million), but the sellers exercised their right to refuse to sell the island at that price.  The seller was Seattle’s Fluke family. Its patriarch, the late high-tech pioneer John Fluke, bought Vendovi in 1966.

With 2.8 miles of pristine shoreline, Vendovi is situated between Guemes, Lummi and Samish Islands near the entrance to Bellingham Bay.  Essentially undeveloped but for one small residence, the Preservation Trust had long considered Vendovi to be one of the most important unprotected properties in the San Juan Islands.

The SJ Preservation Trust will undertake a natural inventory and management plan for the island that will likely accommodate some public access. Until that plan has been completed, however, public access will not be permitted. A caretaker has been retained to live on the island.

Founded in 1979, the San Juan Preservation Trust is a private, non-profit land trust dedicated to helping people conserve land in the San Juan archipelago. Noted for its $18.5 million acquisition of Turtleback Mountain on Orcas Island, the organization has permanently protected more than 260 properties, 32 miles of marine shoreline, and 13,700 acres on 19 islands, including land now managed as public parks, private nature reserves, and working farms and forests.