The Land’s Bounty
By Lea Cramer • Photos by Anne Abernathy
On Whidbey Island, preservation is not a theory. It is a roof that must be replaced before the rains return, a hinge welded back into obedience, a hayloft stacked against winter. At Eckholm Farm, nestled inside Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve, history isn’t just scenery—it’s woven into the daily workload.
One of the farm’s heritage barns—registered with the state—still stores hay in its loft, as it was built to do. The beams hold. The bales are stacked. Here, the past is earning rent.
“We bought this farm in 2013,” Bruce Eckholm smiled, “and fell in love with the project of seeing if we could restore it. So, it did not look like this when we bought it.”
Restoring it did not mean freezing it in time. It meant making it useful and productive again. The decision was not reckless, though it might have looked that way from the outside. Linda Eckholm, Bruce’s wife, still works as an actuary—a profession defined by risk assessment and probability curves. Insurance, steady income, health
