RIP A Frames: Extras
Episode 2: RIP A frame cabins
The drive between Bremerton and Port Orchard is an afterthought to me nowadays. I do it five days a week, twice a day and as long as I beat the shipyard traffic, it’s pretty uneventful.
As a kid, it felt like an eternity. The way back from Port Orchard was fine. You could look at the water and the birds hunting and the big ships looming over you at the shipyard. The drive from Bremerton to Port Orchard felt much longer. There were only two markers in my mind. One was a big, handmade wooden sign nailed to a tree that said “READ YOUR BIBLE”. In all caps. This seemed logical to me. As a kid I went to church in Port Orchard, so that’s where we were headed- of course I was going to Port Orchard to read my bible.
The other marker, my favorite to see, was the set of A frame houses built into the cliff side of the freeway. I used to daydream wildly about them. Maybe they used to be a summer camp, like the one from “The Parent Trap”! Did Swiss people build them? How do you even get down there behind the freeway like that?! That seemed the most impossible to me, as a kid who had no agency to run around on my own.
The easiest one of those questions to answer now is how to get there. It’s no secret, with modern GPS. haha. About three years ago I got a call to make some home repairs. I had no idea I was headed to the cabins until I got there. The address was on Sherman Heights Road and it just sounded like a normal address until I pulled up in front and realized… it’s THE CABINS! Oh my god I am going to the cabins. It was a small childhood dream come true. Once you’re down there, you can kind of see where the original entrance to these homes probably connected to the freeway before barricades went up… probably before there WAS a freeway.
While I was working I got the chance to ask the tenant some questions. He didn’t know a lot, just that the cabins were leased out as homes, each had a letter, like apartments or condos. There were different people living in the cabins in the back, up a teeny dirt road. The cabin I went to was so tiny inside! It didn’t seem like it had been kept up well over the years.
It’s been a tough year for those little cabins. They weren’t in the greatest shape when I visited. A couple of months ago I was driving to work and I noticed something catastrophic must have happened. There were tarps all over the main building, as if there had been a roof failure. And now the main building has disappeared entirely. Torn down.
So in honor of the A frame cabins, May they rest in peace, here is what information I could find on them. The cabins at one point may have been called the “Comstock Cabins”. There seems to be some debate about that and they have probably changed names throughout the years. I also came across the name “Cottage Cove” but that’s a different set of cabins and they were torn down in 2003.
According to real estate websites, The Comstock Cabins were built in 1933. For historical context, that’s a really early date for A frame construction! Post WW2, there were lots of local companies building A frame cabins and selling plans and/or lumber kits for DIY cabins but 1933 is much earlier than those widely available commercial options. They didn't come about until the 50's, 60’s and 70’s. The earliest date I’ve seen for A Frame construction in modern America is a cabin in Lake Arrowhead, CA designed by Rudolph Schindler in 1936. If the 1933 build date is accurate, they beat him by three years! That made the Comstock Cabins 87 years old this year. Whew! There may have been more cabins originally but on google maps you can see that only five or so remain.
One of the most interesting things I came across online while researching was a personal account from someone who’s lived around town for a long time- They said that before the formal freeway went in, on days with unusually high tide, the tide could reach all the way into the cabins! Can you imagine?! before the freeway went in, it would have been a quick walk to the water from the cabins but I wouldn’t dare try it now!
I’m currently unclear on who built the cabins and if they were originally built to be private homes. There does seem to be some consensus that they served as a “Motor Inn” style of motel for vacationing families on road trips and that they were a great fishing destination with their close proximity to the water and a nearby creek.
According to the City Of Gorst facebook page, they suffered a slow decline over the years. I’ll quote them directly because they summed it up pretty well.
“In the 60s and 70s, with fish runs destroyed by human activity, they (the cabins) became rentals for the hippy generation, who made themselves a little stoner paradise out of buildings cheap to rent because (they were) so badly in need of repairs, a couple of them not even having electricity. In the 80s and 90s students still lived there but they were so very dilapidated that mainly only unfortunate souls lived amidst (the) ruin.”
“...decades of the shipyard's heavy metals pollution and e-coli from Gorst Creek (running through a network of leaking septic tanks) pouring into the head of Sinclair Inlet, if you could get down to the water, you seriously wouldn't like being there”
They also mentioned that the cabins would have been close to Charleston and something called “Whiskey Gulch”. The only “Whiskey gulch” I know is a restaurant in Port Orchard! I will need to research but it sounds like there used to be more businesses and more fishing opportunities down on the water before the freeway went in, and the area called “Whiskey Gulch” was torn down. As for the claims about the water quality… I’ve been hearing those rumors my whole life. I was here in the 90’s but I was a small child so I don’t know how the water actually was. I do remember that my mom would take us down to the Evergreen park, but we always left before dark and we were never allowed to go in the water.
Do you know anything about Whiskey Gulch, or the urban legend that is Bremerton’s water pollution? Do you have other questions about Bremerton and its history? I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line and let me know! We’re on all of the usual social media as @bremelore. And If you want to learn more, don’t forget to subscribe.