KENNEWICK -- Lester Mott spent 46 years overlooking the Tri-Cities from his three-bedroom brick ranch home atop Ely Street. Now, his 12.5-acre homestead is on the auction block.
Mott's property and home, assessed at $171,000, will be sold Saturday to the highest bidder, said one of his daughters, Lori Mott.
Lester Mott, who died in October 2010, moved his family to the property in 1965. There were no next-door neighbors, and the view was wide and uncluttered by development.
"We lived above the orchards and melon fields," Lori Mott said, noting that Kennewick's residential area had not yet expanded south to where 45th Avenue now largely defines the city's outer limits.
Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers of Moses Lake will conduct the 1 p.m. sale.
Lori Mott recalls being on the property as a child, where she and her sisters could pretend they were in the Old West, without anything to fence them in.
"We'd play cowboys and Indians and ride motorcycles," she said.
Then, as now, most of the property lies behind the house, reaching up the steep hill, cresting the top and then sloping toward the Horse Heaven Hills.
The Mott household had cats, dogs, a calf, goats, ducks, turkeys and a pet Canada goose. When there was nothing else to do, there always was weed whacking, Mott recalled.
Her father, a civil engineer and equipment operator, enjoyed living on the edge of the community where he could tinker, she said.
The house is a typical ranch-style rambler built in 1956, just over 2,000 square feet, with large picture windows on the north side, and two bathrooms. There is a detached three-car garage.
But the best asset, said Chuck Yarbro Jr., is the unobstructed views out those windows, as far as the eye can see across the river into Franklin County.
Lori Mott said she and her son lived with her father his last few years, and now that he is gone, she has reconciled herself to seeing the property sold.
"This is the old home base, but I don't have an attachment. It's had its time," she said.
-- Go to www.yarbro.com and click on the link to the Lester Mott sale.
-- A public preview is planned from 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday.
