ELEVEN YEARS AGO, Dan and Donna Purnell were visiting friends Andrea and Steve Abercrombie, who live in Langley on Whidbey Island.
While the men went golfing, Donna and Andrea went to garage sales.
One stop they made was at a bed-and-breakfast inn whose owners were closing the business and moving to Arizona. On the block: the house’s furnishings, including the kitchen stove.
But not just any stove — a cream-colored ceramic Wedgewood gas stove that had a covered cooktop and oven, with a wood-burning stove on the side.
And Donna loved it.
So when the men got back from golfing, they learned that instead of relaxing, the women had other plans for them: They were all going back to the B & B to see the stove.
It was still for sale.
The price was not cheap, but Andrea knew Donna and the stove were meant to be.
“She said, ‘It’s a must-buy. You have got to buy this stove,’” Dan said. “Of course, we had no kitchen to put it in at that point.”
That’s because the Purnells were living in a patio house in Denver. But heeding their friends’ advice, they bought the stove and put it in storage, where it remained for 10 years.
Now it’s the centerpiece of the Purnells’ ridge-top cedar home, one of eight stops on this year’s American Association of University Women Kitchen Tour.
“The stove was what started the pipe-dreaming about the kitchen and how we would design it,” Dan said.
Their Chimacum house, which they finished last spring, sits on 15 acres, on land that Don’s father bought in the 1930s.
That’s also the decade the Wedgewood stove was built in California. According to an antique-stove website, James Graham started designing and building wood stoves at his foundry in California in the 1880s. After his death in 1902, his sons took over the business, introducing the Wedgewood line in 1910.
‘Deluxe’ model
Donna said her Wedgewood was probably a deluxe model of its year, 1935; the wood stove lights from a pilot in the oven, which has a calibrated broiler drawer underneath.
Donna cooks on the “speed and simmer” burners, which are now fueled by propane, but uses a modern microwave/confection oven more than the Wedgewood’s.
“It’s wonderful for rising bread and rolls,” Dan said. “We also use it as a plate warmer. The pilot light is always on.”
When designing her kitchen, Donna picked out a farmhouse apron sink to match the stove, and the builder, Bob Little of Little & Little Construction, recommended quarter-sawn oak for the cabinets.
A screen door on the pantry was inspired by one Donna saw in a house on Whidbey Island. The doorknob is from Don’s grandparents’ farmhouse.
Another find is the chopping block. Don, who was in medical diagnostic sales, bought it when the Purnells lived in Rochester, N.Y., in the 1970s.
“I was driving home and saw a sign for tomatoes for sale,” he said. “I stopped and saw these chopping blocks in the garage.”
There were three or four of them, Dan said, ranging from huge to small, that belonged to a butcher who had just retired.
When Dan asked if he’d sell him one, the man thought a moment, then said, “I’d have to charge $20.”
“It’s been in our kitchen ever since,” he said.
Dan and Donna are both Northwest natives. Dan’s family moved from Chimacum to Seattle after he was born. He met Donna at Ingram High School in north Seattle.
After they married, the couple lived in six places before moving to Durham, N.C., where they stayed for 16 years. Donna worked for Sears, mainly on the retail side, but the last four years on the construction side that remodeled old stores and built new ones, including two in the Denver area.
When the couple retired, they returned to Dan’s roots in Chimacum Valley and built the house, which was completed last June.
The stove and the story of how the Purnells bought it illustrate the theme of this year’s Kitchen Tour: “A Day in the Country.”
Donna, an AAUW member who helped select this year’s kitchens, said people who go on the tour realize it’s not just about kitchens, but about seeing different houses and how people furnish and landscape them.
This year’s tour features eight homes in Chimacum Valley and the Tri-Area.
“It’s going to get people out in areas they haven’t seen before,” Donna said. “None of these houses can been seen from the road.”
Worth the trip
If it’s a clear day, the view from the Purnells’ house, of the snow-capped Olympics, alone is worth the trip.
The road up to the house is not long but narrow, so visitors will park below and be shuttled up to the house, Donna said.
The floor plan is open: The entry leads into a great room and kitchen, which opens to a wraparound deck. Visitors can also tour the ADU (accessory dwelling unit, or “mother-in-law apartment”) over the garage, where the Purnells lived for the five years they were building the house.
“I cranked out some pretty incredible meals there,” Donna said of the ADU’s kitchen, which takes up part of one wall in the main room.
That kitchen has such space-saving features as a dishwasher that fits under the sink and a movable work island.
The Purnells decorated the unit with vintage finds, including a crate of filled Coke bottles from upstate New York, a cider press that belonged to Dan’s grandfather and a drum from Afghanistan that Dan’s father bought when he worked for construction companies around the world.
Other homes
Also on this year’s Kitchen Tour is a home that has a classic Aga stove made in England. It has four ovens, Donna said.
The 15th annual AAUW Kitchen Tour is Saturday, April 28, and runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tickets are $14 in advance and $18 the day of the tour.
You can get your advance tickets in Sequim at Over the Fence; in Port Townsend at Kitchen & Bath Studio, Personalize It, What’s Cookin!; at Kala Point at Dream City Market & Cafe; in Chimacum at Chimacum Corner Farmstand; and at Dana Pointe Interiors in Port Ludlow.
The tour’s hospitality center will be in the Chimacum Creek Primary School, 313 Ness’ Corner Road, Port Hadlock. It will be open at 9:30 a.m. on tour day.
The Kitchen Tour is sponsored by AAUW Port Townsend and the University Women’s Foundation of Jefferson County, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Proceeds fund scholarships and educational programs in East Jefferson County.
Phone 360-379-6454 or visit “Port Townsend Kitchen Tour” on Facebook or www.aauwpt.org.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
