12/03/2024
As I approach my Medicare birthday this week I guess it is time to take down my website www.baxterarchitects.com as I have been retired for 5 years now...kind of hard to sign off. It was designed for me by lifelong friend Mark Tolleshaug, who also designed my logo as well as this graphic collage created for a 30th anniversary gathering we held in 2019 for our clients and design and construction colleagues.
Jen and I started our architecture firm in the basement of our Magnolia home in 1988 (the same month our oldest son Joel was born and Jennifer quit her job at Weyerhaeuser) after working for 4 years at NBBJ in Seattle on large commercial projects. The photo below is of me taking the photo of my reflection in the reflective glass wall of Two Union Square at around the 56th floor level with the Space Needle and Lake Union in the background. This sub-contractor and I were making a final inspection of the curtain wall in 1988 suspended in the window washing rig.
We moved our home and the business to Mukilteo in 1990 and enjoyed building a small-town business designing homes and small commercial and mixed-use projects. As of 2001 we moved the firm into a mixed use building I designed and developed with friend Chuck Seider. This office was just two blocks from our Mukilteo home at the corner that Joel and Jeffers caught the school bus and was our location until closing the business in 2019 upon my retirement. The building became our best investment, but the proximity to home unfortunately allowed me to spend more time at work instead of more time at home. Such is the price of running a small business (and being a workaholic).
Architecture was a great career…I highly recommend it to any young person interested in a mix of art, science, sociology and business. Through the years, we were fortunate to have many great clients who valued investing in design work and quality construction, working with employees and consultants who complimented and enhanced our abilities, and in working with a number of fine contractors who also took pride in their work and in our collaboration. Certainly, life was made easier for me through the years by draftsman Mel Acheson and builder Mike Walvatne…I don’t know that I would have survived without either of them. I also owe a lot to Longview architects John Crook and Bob Shaw who introduced me to the WSU Architecture program and offered me employment each summer during my college years as well as a job after graduation.
I am now enjoying retirement with Jennifer and occasionally Joel and Jeffers at our Mukilteo and Whidbey Island homes, keeping busy remodeling both, occasionally returning to Longview to visit my sister’s family, staying involved with Rotary (20 years to go to match my Dad’s 50 as a Rotarian), traveling and hanging out with friends, golfing, playing the piano, beating Jennifer in cribbage and losing to her in gin. I do continue to keep my state license in force (just in case) and am an emeritus member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
