03/05/2024
You know about the amazing music coming your way in the Peace Love & Union Saltwater Songwriters Festival this summer. But equally amazing is the setting in which they will be playing (and where you could be staying!) Check it out:
Celebrating 90 Years in 2024, the Robin Hood Village Resort on the shore of the south end of the Hood Canal is a unique and beautiful place to lay your head any time of year, but add in live and intimate performances by great songwriters from around the country and around the corner, and the Peace, Love & Union Saltwater Songwriters Festival, taking place July 17-21, is an experience not to be missed. Immerse yourself not only in the music but in the natural beauty and the colorful history of the resort itself. You might even feel like you’ve walked into a fairy tale. Except in this fairy tale, instead of princes and fairy Godmothers, you get Grammy winners Paul Overstreet Paul Overstreet and Kristian Bush, reggae star Mishka and SoCal beach rockers the Wheeland Brothers, and award winning songwriters Thom Shepherd, Coley McCabe, Caitlin Cannon Caitlin Cannon, Eric Erdman Eric Erdman, Stoney Gabel, Stephanie Anne Johnson, and local stars Kitty Mae, David Ashby and Honey Babe, among others!
Back when Union was home to the state’s first artist colony, the uniqueness of the first structures of what is now the resort property built by designer Don Beckman caught the attention of some visiting filmmakers, who hired Beckman to design the set for the 1938 Oscar-winning film “Adventures of Robin Hood.” The film’s leading man Errol Flynn himself reportedly stayed at the resort that took its name from the fairy tale, then consisting of the pub and restaurant and two cottages. In the decades to come, the Robin Hood Village actually was a village at the center of the tiny fjord town of Union, then regarded as the Venice of the United States. Aside from the restaurant and pub, today’s cabins 5 and 6 were, for a time, a laundromat and a hair salon. And the building that is today labeled Cabin 15 was the town liquor store as recently as the turn of the century. The restaurant was owned by the Nordstrom family for decades dating back to the 1930s, when it was the speakeasy at which Elmer Nordstrom had his first dance with the young woman who would become his bride. And the creekside restaurant would be a favorite stop for the Gateses, too, during their annual trips to Union. In fact, Bill Gates’s affection for the area is so deep that he paid for the re-routing of State Highway 106 to build his six-house compound just a stone’s throw from Robin Hood Village (although for your own safety, you should not actually throw a stone in his direction). Today, although the restaurant is closed due to changes to the property and zoning by the previous owners, you can sleep in the midst of that rich history in the uber-spacious Robin Hood Suite, located in what was once the historic speakeasy and dining room.
In more recent Union history, the vibe of the artist colony lives on in the form of a vibrant community of musicians and artists, and for many artists and residents alike, the center of that magic was the Robin Hood Pub, where live music was heard 3 nights a week until five years ago when it too was zoned out of use. It’s been converted to a cabin, but the space itself remains largely as it was, and for the duration of the Peace Love & Union Festival will be used for an onsite bar and some late night unplugged magic.
Visit www.peaceloveunion.net for descriptions and inventory of the remaining cabins.
PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE RESORT. All cabin rentals for the festival are through the website. Call or text 360-280-5209 or email [email protected] for more information regarding the festival and lodging.
