To the unassuming eye, the home of Chanel Jost and Tevon Dubois appears to be firmly rooted in the Maxwelton Valley’s bucolic landscape.

Nearly two years ago, the 1,700-square-foot house was plucked from the shores of Bainbridge Island and barged to South Whidbey, hauled painstakingly by truck from the Possession Point boat launch and delivered to the couple’s property in Clinton.

Jost and Dubois have lived on Whidbey full-time since 2022 but had purchased their acreage a few years before with plans to build a home.

“Honestly, we were like in our mid-20s when we bought the land,” Dubois said. “We were very impulsive.”

But with the rising cost of construction, they pivoted to the idea of purchasing an upcycled home from Nickel Bros., a Snohomish County company that specializes in moving existing houses and other large structures. A 1960s beach cabin with several additions in later decades caught their eye, and was a steal at just $1. But moving it cost $198,000, according to Dubois.

In October 2023, the dark back roads of South Whidbey were closed to make way for their new home. The five-mile journey took eight hours, as reported in a previous South Whidbey Record story.

Now, Jost and Dubois have comfortably settled into their used digs after many exciting updates that have truly made the house their own. Initially, they lived in a tiny home on the property while improvements were ongoing, but recalled being anxious to move into a bigger space.

“This house has been my hobby for the last year and a half,” Dubois said. “We’ve put in like 120 fruit trees and that keeps us pretty busy.”

Perhaps the most visually dramatic difference is the blue-gray siding, replacing the rustic, shingled appearance of the beach house. With a new foundation, it’s also noticeably taller, creating a large unfinished downstairs area that is approximately the same footprint as the rest of the house. Someday, they hope to finish the lower level and rent it out.

Other additions include a heat pump and a new tub, toilet and shower in the home’s sole bathroom. The original floors were sanded down and refinished. There were also some unexpected surprises along the way, like the pungent rat droppings that needed to be cleaned up in the room that the couple uses as an office. Both work as psychiatric nurse practitioners, mostly meeting with patients via telehealth.

All told, the couple invested somewhere around $600,000 into their recycled home and its improvements.

“Overall, it was a much easier process than building,” Dubois said. “It would have been a much longer, more expensive process to build from the ground up.”

It also turned out to be a serendipitous purchase. As Jost explained, once they started showing everyone pictures, it stirred up familiar memories.

“This house actually was one of our close friend’s godparent’s house, and we didn’t realize that initially when we first started the process,” Jost said.

The end result is a place where the couple have plenty of room for their hobbies and pets, Theo and Selkie. Warm wood finishes run throughout the home, the walls of which are decorated with Jost’s vibrant artwork.

“It’s funny because we were designing a house before we knew we were gonna do this, and it’s nothing like the houses we were designing but it’s better,” Jost said. “It’s got so much more character and quirk to it.”

Photo by David Welton Tevon Dubois and Chanel Jost with their cat, Selkie, and their dog named Theo.