This article originally appeared in the Salish Current.
The soil beneath Rosario Resort in Eastsound is like a historical tome, each layer a chapter in the story of human life here.
There was a Lummi community here in the time of the grandparents’ grandparents — before Robert Moran built Rosario Mansion in 1906–09; before the Newhall brothers milled lumber here in the 1880s and ’90s; before the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott opened this land for non-Native ownership.
Jay Julius W’tot Lhem, a former Lummi Nation chairman who now leads the nonprofit Se’Si’Le, which protects Indigenous sacred sites, areas, resources and landscapes, said a longhouse was located here — a great home of wide cedar planks, held to posts and beams. Longhouses were shared by several families and were also gathering places for celebrations of milestones and for seasonal ceremonies.
This is sacred ground to the Lummi people. The site is designated by San Juan County as an archaeological buffer and the cultural resources there are protected by state and federal laws. The Lummi Nation must be consulted before any excavation is done to ensure cultural resources are not disturbed. Work plans must be approved and permits issued in advance by the county.
But that didn’t happen before the owners of Rosario Resort and Rosario Harbor installed glamping tent platforms here in April, according to the San Juan County Department of Community Development, which investigated and issued a stop-work order.
Representatives of the Lummi Nation then made a site visit. The state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation — DAHP — will determine how best to restore the site without disturbing cultural resources there.
Kyle Dodd, deputy director of the San Juan County Department of Community Development as well as of Health and Community Services, said Rosario Resort owner Chris Robison and Rosario Harbor owner Beau Brandow “are on the same page” with the county and are “moving forward to resolve issues” related to the unpermitted work in the archaeological buffer. He didn’t know whether fines would be levied after mitigation is completed.
“Typically, penalties are reserved for those that continue moving ahead [with unpermitted work] and ignoring us,” Dodd said. “As long as we’re on the right track here and we can resolve it, then we’ll have that conversation internally here with our prosecuting attorney on whether or not we think penalties are appropriate.”
Cultural resources can range from shell middens to burials. It’s a sensitive subject and officials seemed reluctant to talk about what, if anything, may have been disturbed by the platform installations.
“The following is all I can release at this time: DAHP is working with Rosario Resort, San Juan County and the Lummi Tribal Historic Preservation Officer to ensure compliance with archaeological laws and regulations,” Allyson Brooks, state historic preservation officer, wrote in an email.
DAHP is working to ensure that no archaeological damage resulted from the construction of the tent platforms, in consultation with the county and Lummi THPO, she said.
Robison and Brandow installed 8-by-8-by-8-inch concrete piers that deck foundations can be put on, and they trenched for power outlets at different campsites. Digging was done for some of the concrete piers, Dodd said, and the work didn’t appear to be “very invasive.”
The stop-work order is the latest stumbling block for Robison in his efforts to make the historic site a sustainable investment. The investor bought Rosario Resort in April 2024 for $6.65 million from California oil company owner and Anacortes resident Jerry Barto, who had owned Rosario for 16 years. But Barto retained ownership of 60 of 80 guest rooms, which he leased to Robison after some of Robison’s financing fell through. After a poor season of guest room rentals, Robison sold the marina, restaurant and pool in February 2025 to Brandow, owner of an outdoor excursion company.
Dodd said glamping platforms first appeared above the marina and a stop-work order was issued for those. “That whole Rosario lower area is within an archeological buffer,” he said. “Well, they kind of pivoted and said, ‘OK, we won’t dig. We will just put driftwood and wood chips on top of the ground and install these pads for camping.’”
But county inspectors later found glamping platforms installed near Rosario Mansion, and the county issued a notice of violation to both property owners with corrective action plans and time frames.
Dodd said tents and teepees installed on the platforms have since been removed.
Preventable entanglement
Disturbing sacred areas in Lummi’s historical territory has resulted in serious consequences before. Representatives of the Lummi Nation visited San Juan County officials in about 2000 and advised them to, essentially, call before they dig. Lummi didn’t want to be in an adversarial position, they said.
Nevertheless, the Lummi Nation was compelled to close Madrona Point in Eastsound — an ancient village site where ancestors are buried — in 2007 because of digging and site misuse. On the mainland, construction of a wastewater treatment plant near Semiahmoo Spit in 1999 disturbed a Lummi village and burial site, resulting in a land transfer to the Lummi Nation. A coal exporter cleared and paved a road without permits near Cherry Point in 2010, disturbing an area where ancestral remains dating back 3,000 years had been interred. The coal export project was stopped because of its impact on the environment and on a culturally sensitive area.
Dodd said the entanglement at Rosario was preventable.
“We have a pretty defined process in which property owners consult with the county first,” Dodd said. “We have archaeological buffers mapped. If anything is within that, then we direct people to an archaeologist to do some survey work to determine if their project is going to impact it. And then we go from there.”
San Juan County Council member Justin Paulsen, whose District 2 includes Orcas Island, said Rosario Resort “is one of the most complex pieces of property” in San Juan County.
“It’s governed by a portion of our code called the Rosario Resort Master Plan, and that was a document that I think was established in 2007,” he said. “So anything that happens in that area is based on that document, which is a very different planning tool than anywhere else in San Juan County. That’s part of what makes this whole development discussion really complex — it’s not just applying county codes, it’s applying a very specific document to that property.”
Strained relations
Meanwhile, the report to the county soured relations between the resort and harbor owners and their neighbors. “No Trespassing” signs have been posted on the property, but that could prove problematic as well.
When Rosario’s then-owner Gilbert Geiser subdivided and sold off a number of parcels in the 1960s, he included access to the waterfront and use of amenities. “The terms were recorded in the original plats and were also mentioned in real estate contracts when these plots were initially divided out and sold off,” said Gregory Hancock, president of the Rosario Property Owners Association. “But the wording was vague. The lawsuit in 2008 helped to clarify some of that.”
The lawsuit was filed by Bradley Henke, a lawyer and property owner in the Rosario POA, who succeeded in getting the property owners an easement “as a clarification of privileges or rights,” Hancock said. The “No Trespassing” signs block residents from exercising those rights.
“We’ve tried to be as diplomatic as we can and maintain a positive relationship as much as we can with the people who are running the resort right now,” Hancock said. “We want Rosario to be sustainable. We want it to be well-managed, and we want the amenities that have historically been available — and to some degree legally available — to neighbors to be preserved.
“We certainly want the laws to be followed, and if the association or neighbors see that laws are not being followed, we may be in touch with authorities if we’re concerned about it. And I think the people that are involved in owning and operating the resort are aware of that.”
A site with history
A chronicle, compiled from information in the book Rosario Yesterdays by Christopher Peacock and from news reports and public records, details changes at the site:
Pre-contact to mid-1800s: What is now Rosario Resort is a Lummi village site. Many Lummi people move to the Lummi Reservation on Bellingham Bay after the Treaty of Point Elliott is signed in 1855, making a large swath of Western Washington available for newcomers. Lummi people continued to live on the island and harvest resources here, and they exercise treaty rights here today.
1887: The Newhall brothers operate Cascade Lumber and Manufacturing. A company town emerges with a post office and schoolhouse. The Newhalls build the Buckeye, a steam-powered passenger vessel, here.
1905: Robert Moran, former Seattle mayor and retired shipbuilder, buys Cascade Lumber and Manufacturing from the Newhalls, and from 1906–09 builds Rosario Mansion at a cost of $1.5 million. The 54-room mansion is the centerpiece of a 5,000-acre estate.
1938: Moran sells Rosario Mansion and its remaining 1,339 acres to Donald Rheem, a heating and cooling system manufacturer. Moran sells for $50,000 so that the new owner can maintain the estate during the Great Depression. Rheem owns Rosario as a private home for 20 years.
1958: Rheem sells Rosario to Ralph Curton of Waco, Texas, for $455,000. Curton uses the mansion as a summer lodge but abandons his plans to develop Rosario into a resort after a downturn in his oil business. He sells Rosario at a loss.
1960: Gilbert Geiser, former mayor of Mountlake Terrace, buys Rosario for $225,000. Geiser is the first to rent guest rooms and guest moorage.
1980: Geiser sells Rosario for $5.5 million to three investors from Seattle. Geiser gets Rosario back in 1982 when the investors file bankruptcy.
1987: Geiser dies.
1994: Geiser’s widow, Sarah, sells Rosario to Red Rock Resorts of Arizona.
1996: Red Rock Resorts investor Jessica Cato buys Rosario.
1998: Cato sells Rosario to Olympus Real Estate Partners of Dallas, Texas.
2008: The Barto family, led by Jerry Barto of Signal Hill Petroleum, a California company, buys Rosario at auction for $5.45 million plus the buyers’ fee. Barto is cited in news reports as envisioning himself as Rosario’s caretaker, rather than owner.
2024: Chris Robison of Empower Investing buys Rosario for $6.65 million, but Barto retains ownership of 60 of 80 condos after Robison fails to obtain all financing. After a poor season, Robison sells the marina and an adjacent upland parcel with a pool to Nathan “Beau” Brandow of Outer Island Expeditions, which provides whale watch tours, kayaking expeditions and fishing charters.
The Salish Current originally published this story on July 9, 2025.
