News that the Olson Mansion at 21401 244th Ave. S.E. Maple Valley had been sold again brought back memories of family members who once resided there.

Eight Olson children grew up in the home and the youngest, Roosevelt, nicknamed Teddy, related the story of his family’s acquisition of the property.

Around the turn of the century, his father Olof Olson, was a contractor who built tunnels for the railroad and during the depression he lost a contract in Ellensburg where his wife and three sons were living.  He became discouraged, so he hitched up his buckboard and took off for Idaho and finally landed a job in a silver mine in Wallace. There he met up with a man who had a place for sale in Maple Valley. He said it had 63 acres with a house, tool shed, barn, chicken house, orchard, wagon shed, three cows and one horse.

Olson gave him $500 sight unseen. He wrote a letter to his wife and said he thought she would like the place because the description sounded like her home in Sweden.  So in 1898 Mathilda Olson took her three sons, Oscar, Emmett and Ivor, and got on the Northern Pacific train, then the Columbia Puget Sound and Navigation Company and changed trains in Seattle. She got off in Maple Valley at the depot that was just across the road from the grocery store.  W.D. Gibbons, owner of the store, took her in the delivery wagon to the old house, which was located across from Highway 18.

There wasn’t any well on the place, so water had to be hauled from the creek. The house was all made out of hand split lumber with a big kitchen, parlor, dining room and two bedrooms up and two in the attic. Three more children arrived: Adeline, Olga and Roosevelt (Teddy) and the old house (since torn down) became too small.

Ted reported, “Dad cleared enough on one job, a mud tunnel in Idaho that had to be timbered, to build a new house.” So, work was started on the Olson mansion.

Since Olson was used to working with concrete in building tunnels, the 2,200 square foot house, with four floors and a full size basement and attic, is built of concrete even though there was a sawmill close by. 

There used to be a railroad across the property going to Taylor, a switch called Atkinson’s, and that’s where the sand and gravel was spotted and then hauled by a team of horses to the site.  The concrete was mixed and poured entirely by hand labor.

The top floor was never finished, that’s where the expansion tank for the hot water heating system was located. 

They moved into the home in 1907 and two more children were born there, Olof and Anne.  There was a birthday party every month from April through October and lots of other parties.  Anne was married in the home in front of the fireplace. 

The barn was built in 1909 by a contractor from Seattle, the roof is a perfect half circle, rafters are the same pattern as used in the forms for railroad tunnels.

Arches are 9-b-12 feet, four feet long, bolted three thicknesses and sawed by hand.  The rough lumber came from the Sampson sawmill near Black Diamond.

Mr. Olson loved music and in 1912 purchased a Steinway player piano from Sherman and Clay in Seattle so the girls could take lessons.  The piano came out to Maple Valley on the train and they hauled all 1500 pounds of it up to the house with horses.  Ted remembered his Dad’s father coming from Norway for a visit and dancing to one of the rolls, a Norwegian Spring tune.

Ted also remembered there were a lot of loaves of bread that came out of that oven, his mother baked Swedish rye every week.

Olof Olson died in 1926 and Mathilda in 1954 at the age of 83.  A couple of unmarried uncles lived in the home until it was sold to the Brunton family in the 1960s.

Kem Brunton was 12 years old when she and her parents, Frederick and Pat Brunton, and brother, David, 10, moved into the mansion.  They moved to Maple Valley so her father, who was an aeronautical engineer at Boeing, could be closer to his work.

They had a gentleman’s farm with horses and exotic chickens, ducks, peacocks and 20 Black Angus cows and put up their own hay.  From their orchard, they made cider in an old fashioned cider press and filled up their friend’s jugs.

Her mother restored the house, redoing all the woodwork by hand; washing the 67 windows and making new curtains.  Mrs. Brunton entertained a great deal, the Valley Opera Guild and was involved in founding the Maple Valley Arts group.

Mr. Brunton was killed in 1974 when the plane he was flying crashed near Kent.  Mrs. Brunton then went to work at an antique store in Renton for the next 10 years before she died in 1984.  In the meantime she rented out rooms in the mansion to some very interesting individuals.

David tried to keep the mansion going until he moved into Seattle and then Kem moved back in 1988 and lived there alone while the house was up for sale.  She shoveled 12 tons of coal into the stoker that fed the stove to keep warm.

In 1990 the place was sold to the Taylor Creek Group who developed the golf course and consequently sold it to Jerry and Colleen Solomon who continued operating the golf course and established a restaurant. 

Dec. 30, 2010, the sale to the New Community Church was finalized.

In 1991, the Olson house and barn was designated as a King County landmark.