Bainbridge planners are currently reviewing a plan for a nearly 5-acre development in Lynwood Center that includes three three-story buildings that would feature a boutique hotel, a rooftop restaurant with views of the water, and an “art farm” for working artists.
The project — located on the property behind Walt’s Grocery — also includes seven single-family homes, five smaller detached dwelling units and six townhouses that would be split between two buildings that have commercial space on the ground floor.
A market plaza would also be built along Point White Drive.
Six freestanding inn cottages, called “Gypsy Wagons,” would be built next to a pocket park that would also be developed on the property.
The boutique hotel would be called “Hotel Charrette.”
Indigo Architecture & Interiors submitted plans on the project to the city of Bainbridge Island in December. The project is being developed by Blue Moon & Roost Land Companies.
A community meeting on the project will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26 at Pleasant Beach Village Marketplace, 4738 Lynwood Center Road NE.
A portion of the land was previously used by Larson Lumber, and the eastern part of the property has been used as a horse and cattle pasture for the past 40 years.
The project is not being designed to fit with the Tudor-style that’s much on display in Pleasant Beach architecture, according to Indigo’s current plans.
Indigo said it did not interpret the city’s design regulations for Lynwood Center as requiring new development to be built in such a “faux Tudor” style.
The company said that “would be disingenuous, not only to the history of our specific site, but would diminish the intrinsic integrity of the truly historical Lynwood Center Theater building, and related Manor House,” Indigo said in its pre-application submittal to the city.
“We believe through our professional training and skill that the most successful and desirable urban environments are made up of a varied tapestry of specific ‘styles,’ but at their root, a nuanced skill at shaping the buildings with respect to their broader context, in term of scale, massing, detailing and materiality, is of more critical importance than slavish adherence to a specific style,” Indigo added.
Developers said the “Brick House” on the property would be renovated as part of the project.
Plans also include three water storage towers, which Indigo notes would be used for storing surface rainwater runoff for landscaping irrigation, and would create “a neighborhood marker reflective of our community’s rural agrarian roots.”
