A quaint Bavarian mountain town of bakeries, boutiques, bratwurst stands and small artisan gift shops, Leavenworth, Wash. is nestled against the spectacularly wild backdrop of the Stuart Mountain Range, Icicle Creek, and the Wenatchee National Forest in the Cascade Mountains.
About two miles outside of Leavenworth’s bustling downtown corridor, at the end of Icicle Road, is the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat — a serene, 67-acre wooded oasis owned by Harriet Bullitt.
 As former co-owner of KING Broadcasting, founder of Seattle magazine, prominent environmental activist, philanthropist, and recipient of the prestigious Audubon medal in 2004, Harriet Bullitt is no ordinary woman. At 85, she hops on an old ski lift with her dog Roki to commute every morning across the creek from her house to Sleeping Lady, throws pottery in her free time, rocks out to Jack Johnson, runs a local radio station, and established a Twitter account devoted to the preservation of Leavenworth’s natural environment.
Always one to forge her own path, Bullitt entered engineering school at the University of Washington in the 1940s — unheard of for a woman at that time. She struggled in drafting classes next to men who’d grown up tinkering with machinery alongside their fathers.
Inspired by the challenge, Bullitt buried herself in the university library to try to catch up.
Told she didn’t belong there either (the men were, after all, serious scholars who couldn’t afford to be distracted by women), Bullitt was forced to give up pursuit of her engineering degree. Rather than grow bitter, however, she took the advice of her mother — the late Dorothy Bullitt — and shrugged it off and said, “Okay, so? What’s next?”
Speed bumps, not road blocks
These early lessons in viewing challenges as speed bumps, rather than road blocks, set Bullitt on a path of perpetual momentum toward new dreams and goals. Following in her mother’s philanthropic footsteps, she established multiple charitable funds and foundations to support both environmental protection and the arts, and has worked tirelessly in recent years to reconcile competing interest groups in Leavenworth to maintain the well-being of Icicle Creek.
“If the environment isn’t taken care of, nothing else will even matter,” Bullitt says.
Though Bullitt grew up in Seattle, it’s no surprise that she ultimately settled on her family’s property in Leavenworth, drawn to the landscape of her childhood summers by its mountains, fresh air and abundant wildlife.
In the early 1990s, when the Catholic Diocese announced plans to sell a plot of land across the creek from her family’s to condominium developers, Bullitt was given an ultimatum to move or purchase the plot herself. Understanding how precious and in need of protection the land was, she chose the latter.
“People want to know if I always had a vision for this place,” Bullitt says. “The answer is ‘heavens no!’ ”
But she quickly developed one. She started by planting so many trees that the forest service had to tell her to stop. The open space at the end of Icicle Road grew into a forest of pines that would eventually host the Sleeping Lady Resort’s neighborhood of secluded cabins for families, leisure travelers, corporate groups and spiritual wanderers alike.
Other amenities put in at the Sleeping Lady were a solar-panel-heated rock pool and hot tub, spa and sauna, walking trails, fitness center, library, café, pub, music center, meeting rooms, and Kingfisher Dining Lodge.
A gourmand’s dream come true, the Kingfisher serves up fancy, delectable buffet-style meals, packed with fresh, local ingredients — many of which are grown onsite in the Sleeping Lady’s organic garden.
Environmentally strong\
The resort, officially opened in 1995, had a strong environmental conscience long before “going green” became trendy. To begin with, the buildings were designed with sophisticated insulation systems to meet rigorous energy standards. The walkways between buildings are made of recycled materials. Food waste is composted. Rooms are stocked with recycling bins, unbleached cotton towels, organic shampoos, and fair trade coffee and tea.
The rooms are all TV-free, encouraging visitors to venture outside and enjoy the natural surroundings. Bullitt selected the best mattresses she could find, envisioning the resort as a center for spiritual rest and mental rejuvenation.
“How can people be expected to work hard and change the world if they haven’t had good food and a good night’s rest?” she asks.
The resort is not Bullitt’s only entrepreneurial effort to support the work and vitality of fellow nature-lovers. She founded a small, volunteer-driven newsletter called Pacific Northwest magazine, designed to share knowledge between environmentalists with expertise in different fields. As the newsletter evolved and readership grew, it needed to cater more to advertisers, and eventually evolved into the glossy culture and lifestyle themed Seattle magazine of today. Bullitt accepted the change with grace.
“No one wants to read a magazine with a mushroom on the cover,” she chuckles. “On a side note, I don’t know why…I think mushrooms are beautiful! But it’s okay with me that the magazine moved on.”
Her appreciation for adapting to life’s ever-changing circumstances came from lessons early in life. Taking cues from her grandfather, a one-armed lumberjack and sawmill owner who never let his handicap be an excuse, Bullitt learned that persistence triumphs above all.
During a brief stint with what were deemed to be more “womanly” pursuits in college, Bullitt let her French toast get soggy during a home economics class. The teacher dramatically swept the pan off the stove, chastising Bullitt; particularly during wartime, errors in the kitchen were unacceptable.
The teacher’s solution? Salvage the food by pouring the soggy toast into muffin tins to bake instead.
That spirit of improvisation is one Bullitt has maintained throughout her life and many endeavors. Planning is less important than taking action; anything can be adapted later, if necessary. What matters most, she says, is that people dream, persist, work together for a better world, and not forget to nourish themselves along the way.
Yitka Winn is a freelance writer in Seattle. She highly recommends the French toast at the Kingfisher.
Dazzling lavender in the organic garden at The Sleeping Lady. Photo by Carolyn Price |
