SEQUIM — A home known for its large agave plant that bloomed in 2023 along Fifth Avenue in Sequim will go up for sale.
Clallam County Fire District 3 commissioners approved the sale of the two-bedroom, 902-square-foot home and 0.18-acre property at 305 N. Fifth Ave. at their Jan. 6 meeting. The vote was 2-1, with commissioner Bill Miano dissenting.
Proceeds will go to a capital fund, fire district staff said.
Fire Chief Justin Grider said commissioners requested options for the property adjacent to fire station 34 in December, and those included renovating the home for office space, demolishing it for a parking lot, selling or renting it.
Staff recommended razing it for a parking lot as renovations and permits would have been too costly for the district, Grider said.
Miano said he agreed with the recommendation, which would expand parking and create some covered space for additional vehicles.
Commissioner Mike Mingee said they looked at a number of pros and cons, and he and fellow fire commissioner Jeff Nicholas felt they should sell the property to support the construction of a new Carlsborg fire station on the district’s property by the Operations and Training Center at 255 Carlsborg Road.
“I feel we need to take all the necessary steps in 2026 to allow the district to break ground in 2027,” Mingee said.
Mingee said fire commissioners updated a district policy on Jan. 6 to include references to debt policy for facilities. Staff already have obtained a conditional use permit through Clallam County to build a new fire station, he said.
The Fifth Avenue home could become the fourth property the district has sold in recent years to support the Carlsborg station as the existing structure at 70 Carlsborg Road has been deemed too small for staff and apparatuses.
The fire district last sold its Lost Mountain Station 36 for $324,000 in November 2024. Two other pieces of property — 1.96 acres on East Anderson Road for $160,000 and 5.2 acres in the 100 block of Sieberts Creek Road for $175,000 — were sold after staff determined they were no longer viable locations for new fire stations.
The Clallam County Assessor’s Office last appraised the 305 N. Fifth Avenue property built in 1946 at $309,408, while Zillow has it appraised at $340,100 and Realtor.com at $360,561.
The fire district purchased the home in August 2015 from William and Isobel Johnston for $142,000 with the agreement they would live at the home until their deaths, according to fire district staff.
Isobel Johnston, a retired stock clerk for Grays Harbor Chair and Manufacturing Co., lived in the home until she died early last year at age 96, and William Johnston, a Hoquiam Plywood employee, died at age 90 in November 2018. They were married nearly 71 years and retired to Sequim in 1991.
The home was a popular sight for passersby for decades with the large Agave Americana taking over their front yard. It grew from the size of a baseball to the height of their roof through the years.
Isobel said in 2020 that seeing it reminded her of William and the time they bought it at a garage sale in the 1990s.
From the summer to fall in 2023, the agave grew a 22-foot flower stock upward and outward with numerous branches.
Isobel, a longtime gardener, had her wish fulfilled to see it bloom before she died.
“I never ever thought it’d get that tall,” she said in December 2023.
The bloom meant the end of the plant’s life cycle, but several smaller agave plants were discovered and recovered by local master gardeners, who helped remove the larger plant in November 2024.
Isobel watched through her windows as they worked. She suspected the agave, typically better suited for drier climates, saw success because of Sequim’s limited rainfall and the plant’s concrete barrier.
A few agave plants were left to grow in the planter at her request, and master gardeners took a few plants for their annual plant sale.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
