We usually keep our real estate focus on the Greater Seattle Area, but some houses are too unique to ignore. Case in point: Olalla’s Dwarf House, a fairy-tale oddity hidden in the forests and dirt roads of backwoods, Olalla. The Dwarf House looks like something straight from Snow White. It belongs in Disneyland, not in our everyday world, and certainly not on the market—but here it is, anyway.
To find it, cross into the more remote side of the Puget Sound, to the rural community of Olalla lost between Gig Harbor and Port Orchard. Leave the highway, and then leave paved roads altogether, and bounce down a long maze of gravel roads. You’ll find an orate metal gate at the end. The gate looks misplaced here among small farms, bluegrass festivals, and the occasional meth house. But past that gate, and down another long, dirt road, that’s where you’ll find it: The Dwarf House.
You see the five-acre property first. It has elaborate landscaping, especially considering the setting; the property comes complete with a moat and stone bridges. There’s a playhouse in the middle of it all, a ten-foot-diameter, imported tree stump hollowed out and adorned with a nose and a chimney and a window. It brings to mind the little old lady who lived in a shoe.
Past the playhouse and across a stone bridge, you find the Dwarf House proper. There’s isn’t a single straight edge in the whole house; the “2,500 square feet” is a necessary approximation. The roof rises up and down, forming mountainous peaks and valleys almost as low as the ground. The house curves and twists in all directions.
“Mother nature doesn’t build things in squares,” the builder and original owner said. “That’s the feeling the house had, more in tune with the natural world.”
Once upon a time (the 1970s), Richey and Karen Morgan built the Dwarf House as a perfect fairytale home. They used timber found near a local creek for the beams, made the round doors by hand, custom-built each room, and laid a stone fireplace. Evonne Bess bought the property in 2005, and she has now put in back on the market at $825,000. Here’s the listing.
