Meet Mike & Cis Kennard
Real people, who are really living in that house, & who are really happy to show you inside. (Really!)

Welcome to our home, and thank-you for being interested enough to want to see inside! That really is our attitude about the curiosity from even total strangers. We understand that living in such a house, in this community, carries with it a semi-public responsibility.  At the very least, we’ve realized, that since becoming its inhabitants, we have been quickly propelled (Wow, you guys live in THAT house?) to a slightly greater notoriety!

But besides the significance to ourselves, we also appreciate the reality that the last time a cross-section of people were able to frequent the house, may have been way back in the 50’s and 60’s when the three Carr boys were growing up here.  And maybe their friends or friends’ families might have had reasons to visit this homesite of Edward Eldridge, a pioneer founder of Bellingham.  But after the boys were grown and gone, it was only family and then the unfortunate, but inevitable, declining number of their aging parent’s personal friends, who had, as they say, any occasion to stop by.

All those years added up to more than a couple of generations worth of drive-by, pent-up frustrations;  “I’d really love to get the chance to see inside that place someday – I wonder what it’s really like?”

Well, for starters, it’s our home.  A place where we do all of those ordinary things, just like everyone else: cleaning, cooking, eating, sleeping, reading, watching T.V., relaxing, retreating, and sometimes, oh, of course, entertaining!  As you might imagine, recently many of our friends have come up with the not-such-a-surprising idea and suggested “Kennard’s Castle” as a perfect location for almost anything. (“hey, let’s have it over at Cis and Mike’s!”)

Sometimes we’re the ones who initiate the activity; like when we were able to have our entire staff from the Bellingham Beauty School, along with their spouses (32 adults), and they all were able to fit comfortably (O.K., we had to bring in another table) in the dining room for a sit-down Christmas dinner!  Or when the two-acre yard can accommodate the combined total of 300+ currently enrolled students and alumni with friends who can spread out to enjoy the annual Bellingham Beauty School picnic.

It’s rather nice not to be limited to restaurants or a park when having those private, larger, activities.

And now, it’s you who have really done us a favor; by giving us this chance to “show off” our home of which we’re admittedly are quite proud.

But no matter what’s our home or where it’s at, we’ll always be hard-working, good-Lord-blessed folks, who really celebrate all the wonderful qualities of this home, the great view, the large yard, and the central location.  Although it’s only two minutes from our business, it feels like somewhere a world away, when we turn through the trees into the circular driveway.

And now, because of your interest, it lets us appreciate, all over again, what it’s like to live here.   You might be surprised to learn that every so often, we “step back”, and stand together out by the street, and looking back at the house, say to each other, “It’s really hard to believe, but this beautiful place is really our home!”

We would never want to lose that feeling. Your visit here today, helps us keep the joy.