Home

There’s not exactly no place like Home. Certainly, some might even suggest the town is typical of the communities that share Key Peninsula across the Puget Sound from Tacoma. In this case, typical is a compliment, particularly if nearness to sweeping panoramas and serene coastal living are what float your boat. After all, water is the lifestyle out here, though not quite as much as in neighboring communities further south on the peninsula where there’s more of it. “It’s just so shallow up at the end of the bay,” says Dave Walker, an eXp Realty Realtor, with nearly 30 years in the industry, most spent around here. “That bay gets shallow at the end, and when it’s low tide, it’s not navigable. It’s the depth of the bay that makes it a little less desirable for boating lovers.”

A historic community whose earliest inhabitants set out to live somewhere they could practice alternative lifestyles and individualism, present-day Home is just far enough out of reach of the big city to live as you will. “Home is a little grocery store, a gas station, a couple of little restaurants and a post office. The post office used to be part of the Grocery Store,” Walker says. And the post office and store serve other communities on the peninsula too, Walker says. “This is where they go pick up a gallon of milk if they are out.”

Home is 29 long miles from Tacoma and about 20 miles to Gig Harbor, the next nearest urban area. So, nothing is closer than a half hour away. That’s just enough distance to make all this rolling topography around here feel an eternity away. As in so much of The Great Northwest, there is a wealth of trees lording over the homes, a mixture of traditional American two-stories and ranch-style homes mostly along the waterfront and spread across bands of narrow roadways. Plots of land leave breathing room even where they’re clustered together in compact subdivisions.

The median price for a single-family home is around $800,000, with houses ranging from about $400,000 on the lower end to as much as $1.3 million at the top. Here on the peninsula, the distance from the waterfront and how much of the bay you see influences cost most. “If you have a view of the water, you get a little bit more for your house. If you’re off the waterfront, you get a better value. It depends on what matters more to you,” Walker says.

Home’s children belong to the Peninsula School District, which Niche rates A-minus. They attend Evergreen Elementary School, Key Peninsula Middle School and Peninsula High School. Niche rates each school B-plus and ranks the high school in the top quarter of Washington high schools at 92 out of 447. Peninsula High offers advanced placement-level courses in calculus, chemistry, human geography, physics, psychology, statistics, U.S. history and world history.

It should come as little surprise that folks around here treasure the outdoors. No place is that more evident than the peninsula’s lush parks, the nearest of which is Penrose Point State Park, which features more than 2 miles of saltwater shoreline plus 2.5 miles of hiking, biking and nature trails. Parkgoers can swim, boat, scuba dive, fish, water ski, birdwatch and more. “You’re only 10 minutes away from Penrose,” Walker says. “It’s a big draw.”

Isolated as Home is, entertainment, shopping and dining aren’t entirely a world away. A sit-down dinner in Gig Harbor is just 30 minutes away. “Tides Tavern on the water is always a good one,” Walker says. “Or BBQ2U. It has some of the best-smoked meat in the area.”

You’ll find your retail and grocery shopping also bunched around the same area. Albertson’s, Target, Starbucks and the rest are within walking distance or a short drive apart. You’ll even find an IMAX theater close by. Better still, Tacoma proper is just across the bridge, offering additional opportunities to upgrade your entertainment experience.

A full day of urban happenings will have you longing for horseback riding and the trails you left behind and appreciating where you call Home.

Written By

Jonathan Clarke

Photography Contributed By

William King

Video By

Matthew Link