Building a Baseline, part IV: Around Seattle's northwest corner

Dear Diary,

This part concerns three places, one of which I've never seen, and a different one of which is quite far from the other two.  So it's a dubious gathering.

But that's what these hikes' version of "inconvenients" are like.  In part II of this page, I wrote "Most of North Seattle is, on the maps I drew, full of interesting places to go."  The first day I tried to visit 20 destinations, September 1st, only four were left for Northgate.  (I then ruled one out of that part.)  So I looked for isolated destinations that wouldn't take bites out of the main web, and this part and the next, about Bitter Lake Reservoir, are examples.  (Northgate and Bitter Lake itself are bites out of the main web, but ones I felt relatively confident about.)

Here's the usual OpenStreetMap map:

So let's go!

Unidentified exclusive park (A on map)

There's a vacant lot, about fifteen acres in size, just north of the City of Seattle park, seven acres, Llandover Woods.  This vacant lot goes up to the city's border with Shoreline.

From the website of the owners, The Highlands, I'm fairly confident that this lot is, or is part of, a park.  That website doesn't name most of their extensive parks, and specifically not this one.

The Highlands is a gated community in Shoreline; this may be their only Seattle property.  One gate, in the form of a guard station, is visible from near Llandover Woods's entrance:

I'm afraid, dear Diary, that this is the first of the five parks getting their first descriptions in your pages that I mentioned.  But the best of the five is also in this part.  If this park has an address, I don't know it; the King County Parcel Viewer doesn't assign addresses to vacant lots.

Llandover Woods (B)

This is a woodsy park at 14499 3rd Ave NW, with trails and distinctive benches as its main amenities.  I've only discussed it with you, dear Diary, once, I think, in November 2020's "Top of the City, part III".  Unaccountably, considering that I would soon start writing about topography, I left out any reference to its spectacular relief.  (Basically, Llandover Woods, and for that matter Llandover on the Sound, the home owners' association, are on the slopes of coastal cliffs rather like those I described, not very well, in "Land and Water in North Seattle, part II: The Lake City Coast".)

There are two main trails, one of which marches efficiently from entrance to exit.  The other wanders more, has less official trails branching off from it, and is simply more fun.  Unfortunately, to make that latter trail work, they had to include stairs.

I did have fun there, and will try not to let six more years pass before I visit again.

Dunn Gardens (C)

This is a garden property that boasts of being the only publicly accessible example in Washington of a garden designed by the Olmsted brothers, the same people who designed Ravenna Boulevard.  It contains two (not very) private residences, and I ended up leaving by the driveway of one.

Its management has a very clear idea of who its main audience is (unlike me!), and the gardens' home page brags about their "all terrain wheelchair".

This is a privately owned park, part owned by the E. B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust, and part by the owners of the private residences.  And I took way too many photos to fit into this part, and liked the place enough that I want to give it its own page anyway.  So that's the last page I hope to write in you tonight, dear Diary.

This much more teaser, though:

Baseline for the northwestern corner of Seattle:

Dunn Gardens - One water fountain, running, and with the sort of water delay that fountains at Northacres and Cal Anderson parks have.  They bought it expecting it to run all year, and it looks like they got their money's worth.  Two non-gendered single user stalls, one wider than the other and presented as accessible.  All at least notionally paywalled.

I hope to get back to you soon, dear Diary.