OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Park officials on Wednesday released an environmental assessment for possible improvements to Olympic Park Institute and Rosemary Inn, located at Barnes Point on Lake Crescent.
The inn was built in the 1910s and remains one of the park’s best preserved resorts.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the inn in 1937, and it joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The environmental assessment is available for public review and comment through March. It analyzes the effects of four strategies for the future of the Olympic Park Institute campus.
The institute welcomes more than 5,000 adult and youth students each year, specializing in programs that deal with nature and the outdoors.
Students often gather at the Rosemary Inn, part of the institute’s campus and the heart of the U-shaped historic district that goes by the same name and opens onto Lake Crescent’s south shore.
Inn, cabins included
The historic district encompasses about half of the institute and includes the inn and its original guest cabins, part of the campus’ 20 or so buildings.
Olympic National Park is proposing to improve the inn’s kitchen, essentially the extent of the work inside the historic district.
Other additions and improvements are either modifications of structures outside the historic district or new structures, also outside the district, according to Olympic Park Institute Executive Director Scott Schaffer.
The goal is to bring the institute, established in 1987, into the 21st century while maintaining historic charm.
“As we’ve grown we’ve kind of outgrown our facilities,” Schaffer said.
“This is really all about the ability to serve people well . . . while maintaining the historic ambiance, which is very nice.”
