![The author's ‘ultimate hangar’ design was largely informed by a negative example, as well as a number of friends’ very nice hangars. [Courtesy: Sam Weigel]](https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FLY0825_3.3_Taking-Wing_B.jpeg)
When my wife, Dawn, and I purchased our airstrip property in 2019, we were still living on a 42-foot sailboat and cruising the Caribbean. We weren’t planning on buying land that summer.
We changed those plans—and once again completely reordered our lives—because we had stumbled across the most perfect slice of airplane heaven near Seattle. While out sailing, we’d been discussing and dreaming what our return to land life would look like and had come to a few conclusions: It would involve a return to general aviation; it would be in the Pacific Northwest; we’d buy a few acres somewhere rural and peaceful; and there we would build our ideal home base for adventures by land, sea, and air.
