Famous Gnome House Chalet on Amazing 140 Acre Private Setting

About Meg and Bob Connor

We have lived full time on Orcas Island since 1975, raising three sons, who are now married with children who love to visit their grand-parents. We have been happily married for 52 years! We moved up here with a down payment and no jobs and over the years have done many things. We have worked, farmed, been in construction, operated heavy equipment, coached Little League for all three sons, participated in countless community activities, volunteered at the school, run two successful gift and clothing shops, designed and built several buildings including the amazing Gnome House, and remodeled our other vacation rental waterfront home, Maggie's Manor, using the outstanding design drawings of our eldest son, now an Architect. We are involved in cutting edge restoration of marine habitat and just completed a 9 weir salmon ladder and planted over 1500 plants and trees over our estuarine and riparian areas. If you have a Facebook page, visit the Deer Harbor Stewardship Project page to see some of what we have been doing. We hope you will 'Like' it. We have extensive backgrounds in skiing, sailing, cycling and mountaineering. We enjoy adventures and vacations with our children and grand-children.

Meg and Bob Connor purchased this Chalet in 1986

Why Meg and Bob Connor chose Deer Harbor

We designed and built the Gnome House as a tribute to our Scandinavian heritage, and as a tribute to the place we first met in Kitzbuhel, Austria. It began as a family guesthouse and now for the past 25 years has been an extremely popular vacation rental, perfect for family vacations, romantic getaways, honeymoons, and special occasions galore. It is located on our 140 acre estate, near our home, and also near our other wonderful vacation rental 4 bedroom waterfront home, called Maggie's Manor. We wanted to share our Orcas Island lifestyles with visitors from all over the world. We have on-going environmental restoration activities on our 3 streams, several ponds, magnificent 20 acre estuary, and 20 acre wildfowl marsh, as well as beautiful, productive farm and forest land. It is considered the most significant environmentally diverse San Juan Islands' property by local, state and federal environmental agencies. The beauty and tranquility of Nature inspires everyone who visits. Orcas Island is the most popular place in Washington to get married, and is the dream vacation spot for people all over the world, and we get to live here! And when visitors leave and we say 'goodbye', we always because we are happy to see them go, but rather because we are so happy that we don't have to leave this paradise!

What makes this Chalet unique

In addition to the extraordinary beauty and serenity of Nature,so inspiring to us all, the incredible good weather in Deer Harbor is one of the main reasons for living here. Deer Harbor on beautiful Orcas Island is located in the 'Rain Shadow' area of the Great Pacific Northwest enjoying only 23 inches of rain and over 260 sunny days annually. This means that we can enjoy the great outdoors all year long, hiking, biking, sailing, fishing, etc. There have been documented over 80 species of birds frequenting the extremely vibrant freshwater marsh. There are a variety of environmental programs in progress. We work with scientists, students, and Native Americans on our restoration efforts. Our property is the site of the first white European settler on Orcas Island, Louis Cayou, who married into the Samish Nation in the mid-1800s. We are working with the Samish descendants of Cayou in our restoration efforts, and hope to have their annual Canoe Journey with about 60 canoes stop here in the future. Should your dates not be available in this chalet, please see our other wonderful vacation rental homes: " Grandma and Grandpa’s Getaway for 2 adults + one child, Maggie’s Manor for up to 8 people, and in the off seasons, Maggie’s Getaway for up to 4 guests.