Project LIFE and the Birth of the Bavarian Village
Near Leavenworth, Washington
The Bavarian idea came from two Seattle businessmen, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers, who had bought a failing café at Coles Corner near Leavenworth and were looking for a concept that would bring travelers off the highway. Bob Rodgers had served in the United States Army in Bavaria during the Second World War and remembered the painted building facades, the carved wooden trim, the lederhosen, and the alpine architecture of the German south. He thought the Wenatchee River canyon, with its forested slopes and mountain backdrop, could make a convincing match for the look.
Project LIFE adopted the concept after debate. Many residents thought it was absurd. Others thought it was worth attempting.
The first building conversion came in the summer of nineteen sixty-five, when a hotel that had been damaged by fire was rebuilt as the Edelweiss, named for the Bavarian state flower, with its facade done in the new style. The response from passing tourists was immediate and positive. More merchants converted their storefronts.
Festivals were added. By nineteen seventy, Leavenworth had established a design review board with legal authority to enforce the Bavarian standard on all new construction and renovation in the downtown. The theme became total and legally binding.
Today there are critics who find the result somewhat surreal, and historians who treat it as a textbook case in successful place branding. Both assessments are fair. Leavenworth is artificial and it works.
