Cloverfields Farm site/third Olympia High School site

Location: 1302 North St SE
mid-Century modern; schools

Cloverfields Farm, ca. 1930s, Olympia School District No. 111 Records, Southwest Regional Archives (detail)

Olympia High School today (2013), Olympia School District

In 1914, at age 70, Hazard Stevens, son of first territorial governor Isaac Stevens, returned to Olympia from practicing law in Boston (for more on Hazard Stevens and his activities in Olympia, see Cloverfields). Here he developed his model dairy, Cloverfields Farm, on land that had been granted to his father in the 1850s. The farm extended over the area now occupied by Olympia High School, on the south side of Carlyon Avenue. Stevens incorporated electricity in the dairy operations, providing a model for local citizens on the various possible uses of electricity (he was president of Olympia Light and Power, among other ventures). He installed a herd of 73 Holstein cows, an unknown breed in the area, as well as angora goats that kept the grounds trimmed.

After Kate Stevens Bates inherited Cloverfields Farm from her brother, it was eventually broken into separate tracts. The Daughters of the Pioneers attempted to have the state purchase the historic farm for a park. The Olympia School District acquired 40 acres of the farm property in 1949, and built a shop here in the 1950s. Cloverfields’s barn was used to provide covered parking for schoolbuses.

The new William Winlock Miller High School (commonly known as Olympia High School) was completed in 1960. It was designed by the mid-Century architectural firm Naramore, Bain, Brady and Johanson using the then-popular open concept, involving 9 separate buildings with landscaped grounds between them. The building made extensive use of veneer, whose manufacture in Olympia was an important contributor to the city’s economy. In 2001 the building was extensively remodeled and little remains of the original building’s appearance.

Mid-Century Modern Context Statement

For more on the Stevens family, see the Residents section of this website.

See also pages for the first two Olympia High School Buildings: First site of Olympia High School; Olympia High School-Capitol Way