ByWilliam P. Barrett,
Senior Contributor.
A
fter working for 35 years around the San Francisco Bay area as a regulator and consultant on air quality, Steve Hill wanted to retire to a scenic place that was quieter and less crowded. His wife Janyce, who runs a home-based business selling reproduced vintage sewing patterns, was game for the move. So they headed 300 miles north from Oakland to Yreka, a restored mountain town of 7,000, founded in 1851 during the California Gold Rush and made famous in 1941 as the site of an armed secession movement. But the modern, peaceful Yreka was too quiet for these former urbanites, who craved more fine dining and cultural options.
The Hills canvassed the Pacific Northwest and settled on Walla Walla, Washington, population 34,000, a scenic area in the state’s southeastern corner, known for its scores of wineries and many excellent restaurants serving their product. It’s also home to a local symphony, art galleries, Whitman College and Walla Walla University. Steve, 69 and Janyce, 67, now proudly own a 5,375 square-foot house built in 1909 and once occupied by Walter H. Brattain, who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work at Bell Laboratories inventing the transistor, before teaching at Whitman, his alma mater.
