By Emmett O’Connell
What started as the summer estate of a Seattle commercial pioneer on Johnson Point eventually became the most unique house ever for sale in Thurston County. The striking mansion now for sale for $6 million began when Gamma Poncin bought almost 230 acres at the tip of Johnson Point in 1906.
He imagined a summer vacation spot for his extended family and business connections from Seattle. Poncin was one of the growing commercial class from Seattle that made their wealth as post Seattle fire and goldrush magnates. First coming to Seattle in 1872, Poncin quickly joined a partnership in dry goods in 1876. He later expanded successfully into real estate.
After buying the tip of Johnson Point, Poncin built a series of structures, including a main house, gallery, boat house, guest houses and greenhouses.
One structure of the early structures worth pointing out was Poncin’s gallery. He was a collector of European art and he built a fitting home for his pieces. While the rest of the estate was a fairly typical wooden construction, the gallery stood as an ornamental stone building with French windows.
When Poncin died in 1922 the the property moved into a decade long transition from estate to neighborhood. For about six years, it fell into disrepair until Mr. and Mrs. H.E. Strumer came across the estate. The Strumers were the founders of the Alderbrook Inn on Hood Canal and had plans for similar success on Johnson Point.
They struck a local record breaking deal with Poncin’s family, $125,000 for the estate in 1928. The Beacon Beach resort opened in late summer 1929 on the eve of the Great Depression. Despite great local interest in taking a closer look at the Poncin place and good attendance by weekenders, the resort failed.
The Poncin family took back control of the estate in late 1930 because the Strumers failed to keep up payments. While the Strumers had a larger real estate scheme in mind for Johnson Point — keeping 40 acres for Beacon Beach and selling off the rest for residential lots — it took five more years for the point to be subdivided.
Vincent D. Miller bought the entire estate in 1935 and began subdividing the property into small waterfront lots. The Johnson Point Community Corporation was founded in 1936 to supply the developed lots with water. Eventually, that organization would become the Johnson Point Homeowners Association.
Dr. Ralph and Lillian Brown bought a portion of the original estate in 1940. The couple lived in Olympia for a few weeks before they found themselves on the rundown Poncin place while making a house visit. They eventually bought the old vacation site and began rebuilding. Poncin’s European-style gallery became the centerpiece for their residence out on Johnson Point, where the Brown family would live for decades. The Browns’ residence included a two story addition to the old gallery, where they raised a family.
The Browns weren’t the first medical family to live on Johnson Point. The namesake for the area, Dr. J.R. Johnson practiced medicine out of his cabin not far from where the Browns lived.
The stone gallery and the much simpler two story addition would be the palette on which the most recent owner would expand and create the house as it is now.
In the early 1990s California television executive Charles Brack bought the Brown house three years after Dr. Brown passed away. Brack was an executive with KDOC, an independent television station in Orange County.
Over the next two decades, Brack expanded the European style of the house. Because Brack had some legal issues with his neighbors involving a bulkhead, we’re able to read a little bit about what changes the house underwent:
- The Bracks purchased the property at the tip of Johnson Point, immediately adjacent to Grundy’s property, in 1991.
- The Bracks extensively renovated and expanded the existing house on their property between 1993 and 1998.
- Calvin Brack’s son-in-law, Keith Gibson, testified that the Bracks have invested approximately $8 million in remodeling the home and structures on their property.
- The Bracks’ property included four separate tax parcels when they purchased it. Grundy asserts the Bracks raised the bulkhead to create dry land for building sites.
- The Bracks contend it was necessary to raise the bulkhead in order to complete planned landscaping.
Brack himself passed away in 2010, and his estate has put the house up for sale.
The now more than 13,000 square foot home with 4 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms is for sale by Sotherby’s. It features “ornate moldings, vaulted, beamed ceilings, skylights, French doors, a theater, a bar, a gym, balconies, views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, and a cannon.”
Resources and additional reading:
Seattle PI: Aristocratic mansion on Johnson Point
Poncin Estate, Johnson Point
