Ceasefire arranged in growing garden-club rift

By CONSTANCE SOMMER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

City leaders invariably mention, among a list of their hometown's attributes, the Lake Forest Park Garden Club -- or make that clubs.

In a city that prides itself on greenery and open space, gardening is such a passion that the club itself could not satisfy all views. Finally, a few years ago, it split into two factions -- those who wanted to devote themselves to gardening and those who wanted to join a statewide federation that puts more emphasis on flower arranging.

Both called themselves "The Original Lake Forest Park Garden Club," a state of affairs that pleased no one. Recently, the non-flower-arrangers voted to settle the matter by changing their club's name to "The Lake Forest Park Garden Club Inc."

It has not been an easy divorce.

"There's quite a bit of animosity between the two, even now," says Sally Knoll, a member of the "Inc." club.

What makes the garden club situation particularly unusual is it means two such clubs in a city of only 12,500 people. Nestled between Seattle to the south, Shoreline to the west, Snohomish County to the north and Kenmore and Lake Washington to the east, Lake Forest Park rolls along a series of hills, giving many residents views of something, be it mountains, water or just their neighbor's back yard.

Despite such vistas, Lake Forest Park is not a particularly expensive place to buy a home, at least compared with the rest of King County.

The median price of 132 homes sold in the city in the past six months was $220,000, according to Windermere Real Estate. That compares with a median sale price of $201,223 in King County as a whole for homes and condominiums sold in the month of August.