A Hydroplane Once Landed in One of These Gardens: Mount Baker's Holiday Season, From the Clubhouse Craft Sale to the December 5 Home Tour

On August 7, 1954, the second heat of the Gold Cup was underway on Lake Washington. Guests were mingling at a garden party six houses south of the Mercer Island floating bridge when the Detroit-based Gale IV hydroplane came ashore. Its driver, "Wild Bill" Cantrell, beached the boat in the lakeside garden of Dr. Forest Black. The story is from Clay Eals's Seattle Times "Now & Then" column, published July 30, 2026. According to the column, about 375,000 hydroplane fans lined the lake's southwestern shore that day.

The column's opening photo caption has a date for this December. The property will be one of the stops on the 39th Mount Baker Home Tour on December 5. In later decades, and until 2024, the Oberto family owned the house and grounds.

That garden is where the season ends. It starts this weekend, and every event between now and then begins at one address: the Mount Baker Community Club, 2811 Mount Rainier Drive S.

Every Date Starts at the Same Door

The Community Club runs five events in a little over three weeks. Each one meets at the clubhouse, and two of them send you out into the neighborhood from there.

There are two craft sales on the calendar, and they are different events. The November sale is the large one, with more than 40 local artisans. The December sale is smaller and runs alongside the tour inside the clubhouse.

Friday and Saturday Are Different Sales

The Holiday Arts & Crafts Sale opens tomorrow, Friday, at 4 p.m. The club has set up the two days differently. Friday evening runs until 8 p.m., and the club invites shoppers to have a drink with friends while they browse. Saturday runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with complimentary cookies and cocoa.

Some artisans are only there for one of the two days, and the club suggests coming both days for that reason:

• Friday only: Yingzhao Liu, with landscape paintings in oil or gouache, and John Varnish of Skagit Woodworking, with cutting and charcuterie boards, small tables and live-edge stools.
• Saturday only: Eli Hollister Photography, with wildlife and landscape prints; Cindi Lucas of Cards for a Cause, with handmade cards that support Water4.org; and Ursaminor, with one-of-a-kind art purses.

The rest of the list stays both days. The vendor with the closest ties to the neighborhood is Scott VanderWey's table of cutting boards and boxes from the Franklin High School wood shop. Sales go back to the school's wood shop program. Little Bee Haus brings local wildflower honey products. Andrè Glass sells hand-blown glass jewelry and ornaments, and Mark Ditzler Glass Studio has fused-glass plates, bowls, coasters and holiday ornaments. Café Che Che sells coffee it describes as women-grown and sustainably sourced. Blue Heron Games has family board and card games, and Sophia Kouidou-Giles & Friends has local authors selling and signing their own books.

Most of the potters show here too, including Slosberg Ceramics, Sarah Bak Pottery, Gretchen Siegrist Clay and June Lindsey, whose brightly colored ceramic fruit and gourds suit a Thanksgiving table.

A Weeknight Between the Sales

The Wednesday after the sale is a practical night. On November 18, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., the Mount Baker Emergency Hub holds an emergency kit building session at the clubhouse, with a prepper potluck alongside the kit and home safety topics. The Emergency Hub also holds a monthly meeting on the club's calendar. Its October meeting was listed just before the craft sale.

It's the one event on this list built around preparedness, and you go home with a kit for the hall closet.

December 3, Cocoa First and Then the Lake

The Mount Baker Holiday Party is free and runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 3. The club plans to serve hot cocoa, tea, beer and wine, along with cookies baked by neighbors. Kids can decorate cookies and make holiday cards, and Santa Claus is expected to stop by.

At 8:30 p.m. the club invites everyone to walk down to Mount Baker Beach. Argosy's 2026 Christmas Ship schedule has the shoreline performance there from 8:45 to 9:05 p.m., with the choir In the Mix on board. That cruise leaves the Hyatt Regency Lake Washington at 8 p.m. and is the second sailing of the night for this choir. The 5 p.m. sailing stops at Pritchard Island Beach at 5:35. The walk from the party to the shore fits into the 15 minutes between the club's send-off and the first carol.

Mount Baker has one of the later Lake Washington stops of the night. Parents with small children should plan around a 9 p.m. finish at the water rather than the 8:30 end time on the party listing.

How December 5 Works

Two days after the ship, the 39th Mount Baker Home Tour runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The club calls it "a cherished tradition since 1971." It describes this year's homes as stately historic residences, newly remodeled homes and family homes.

The tour day has its own rules, and they all start at the clubhouse:

1. Pick up your shoe bag, brochure and wristband at will call inside the Community Club.
2. Keep your wristband visible; you need it to get into each home.
3. Take your shoes off at every house.
4. Visit the homes in whatever order you like.
5. Ride the complimentary shuttle between homes, driven by volunteers.

Early-bird tickets are $35 per person. Day-of tickets are $40 at the clubhouse. Groups of 10 or more can get a discount by emailing the club's executive director at [email protected]. Children under 10 and animals are not permitted.

The club is also still looking for docents in the homes, shuttle drivers and hospitality help. Shifts run two to three hours, and Betsy Kerlin Pyun at the same address is coordinating volunteers.

The clubhouse sale on tour day is free and runs the full six hours, with a hospitality suite for tour guests. The club is collecting donations for Rainier Valley Food Bank at the sale, so bring something for the food drive when you pick up your wristband.

What the Tour Looked Like a Dozen Years Ago

A winter 2013 neighborhood newsletter shows how the event used to run. That year's tour was billed as the "33rd Biennial Home Tour" and fell on December 7. It covered six historic Mount Baker homes built between 1912 and 1926, in Prairie, Spanish Colonial Revival and Bungalow styles, and the clubhouse itself was on the route. Advance tickets were $25 and $20 for seniors 65 and over, while day-of tickets were $35. The newsletter calls the tour a fundraiser for the Mount Baker Community Club, and it already had a free shuttle and an arts and crafts fair with tea, coffee and cookies.

Thirteen years later, the day-of price has gone up $5, and the shuttle and the clubhouse sale are still part of the day. The 2013 tour featured homes from the early 1900s. This year's includes a lakefront property whose best-known story is from the Seafair era. The 2025 tour on December 6 was numbered the 38th, and this year's is the 39th.

Back to the Garden Six Houses South of the Bridge

The Seattle Times column ran with two photographs. The first, taken in 1954, shows onlookers crowded around the Gale IV in the Blacks' lakeside garden. The second shows Brad Haskin, director of the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent, standing on the same stretch of lakefront today.

On the morning of December 5, ticket holders can stand there too. Seventy-two years ago, the guests at that party had a hydroplane come to them. This time the trip starts at a will-call table on Mount Rainier Drive, where you collect a wristband and a shoe bag before boarding a volunteer's shuttle down to the water.

We've been part of Mount Baker's Decembers for a long time, and we would be glad to say hello at the clubhouse sale or on tour day. If you're thinking about volunteering as a docent or driver, or just want to know which other neighborhood events are worth a spot on your calendar this season, reach out to the Hinds Team WA. We are always happy to talk about this corner of Lake Washington.