How people felt about the big spruce tree that was higher than the electrical lines at the southeast corner of 32nd Northwest and Northwest 61st varied from person to person but everyone agrees that the tree came down on Jan. 21, 1993 during the Inaugural Day storm. It was 90 to 110 feet; some people loved it, the homeowner hated it.

The tree took down power lines that sparked on the ground until overwhelmed Seattle City Light crews could at least cut the power. Then the street stayed without power for three days, between just 28th and 32nd on 61st.

Duane Rakowski didn’t have electricity, but his father next door did, so Duane ran extension cords over to the family home. When the homeowner had the offending tree taken down he had them leave 25 feet of trunk. Robert Gallegos wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with trunk, but he knew it was something.

So the semi-felled spruce sat for more than a year until Mr. Gallegos arranged for a chain saw carver from Kingston to come look at the trunk. “Design me something,” Gallegos told the carver, although he was thinking he’d like a bear. The carver told him, “No, we’ll make it something better. It will be an eagle with a salmon in his claws.”

The carver and his wife had four chain saws between them. Duane Rakowski who lives on the northeast corner recalls that the five-hour carving completely stopped traffic on 32nd Northwest, as people stopped to watch and take photographs. A year later, in 2001, the Gallegos sold the house and retired to New Mexico, leaving their eagle behind.

Judy Stoehr fell in love with what she called “The Eagle House,” in part because of the unique fixture on the front lawn and also because of the 12.5 foot wide picture windows. Once she had been on a raft trip in the Snohomish to see where eagles nest.

“I never would have imagined there would be something like that in my yard one day.”

People stop at the house and ask permission to take a photo. Everyone in the neighborhood uses the eagle for directions, as in, take a left at the eagle, or in Duane’s case, “I’m the house across from the eagle.”

But this year, according to Judy Stoehr, it was time to go forward with her long held plans to create a better habitat for the eagle. She knew that she wanted there to be boulders and drought tolerant plants, mostly Judy wanted to create a more natural setting for the eagle and his salmon (which had been lost to invasive English ivy for some time).

Enter Tristan Heberlein, founder/owner of Solstice Landscapes Northwest; the son of a friend who had grown up and acquired degrees from the University of Washington in Landscape Architecture and Urban and Environmental Planning. With his personal and professional goals of sustainable landscape design, Tristan’s company was a match to create new habitat for the eagle.

Design started in February; project work began in April as Tristan’s crew removed the lawn and existing plants for disposal through Pacific Topsoil. New topsoil was delivered so that Tristan could begin sculpting the land (moving the dirt around). Then literally tons of rocks were delivered to form dry streambeds surrounded by boulders.

To create a mountainous setting Tristan planted all drought-tolerant, native plants such as Mountain Hemlocks, Evergreen huckleberries and red flowering currant.

In the meantime Judy had a privacy fence built and a trellis along her west-facing window. Next the house will be re-painted in dark colors (Western Hats and Ports of Fancy) to better coordinate with the mountain theme. After the painting is completed Tristan will return to do the final plantings closer to the house, with plans to provide maintenance for the first year of the plantings.

Before the project began the eagle had been tagged so part of the work involved cleaning the eagle and staining it to better protect the wood. Since April the habitat has indeed been taking shape, the plantings taking root and the eagle looking less out of place at the corner or arterial and mountain.

If Judy hadn’t kept the eagle, Duane Rakowski planned to move it to his own yard, even though it would have required a crane (and possibly dynamite to free the roots). He thinks the habitat changes are great and that it looks pretty now.

“It will be really neat when the house gets its new colors,” he said.

Judy plans the entire landscape to be ecologically friendly so that Eagle House will also be Eco-House. It will be bird-friendly with bird bath beneath the mimosa tree and the Burmese cat Maven watching from the other side of the window. Tristan Heberlein of Solstice Landscapes Northwest has enjoyed working at such a high visibility site, with passers-by all curious about the project.

For Duane’s wife, living across the street from the eagle is nothing special, but probably better than having it in her own yard. All parties continue to agree on one thing besideds the date of the Inaugural Storm, the eagle makes it easy to give directions.