About Us

Dean’s father Ray was born in 1922 in Ohio to strict Baptist parents, became an Eagle Scout, and graduated Magna Cum Laude in electrical engineering from the University of Washington. His mother was born in New Hampshire in 1918 and was raised with her two sisters in a family dedicated to Christian Science.  Ray and Dorothy met in Boston during World War 2, married there, and moved to an apartment in Seattle. Dean was born September 15, 1950. His parents bought an acre of forest in north Seattle, and when Dean was one, they hired Carl Berg, a Swedish carpenter, to build the house that Dorothy designed. At two-and-a-half, Dean’s sister Dawn was born.

When Dean was three, some men delivered a big box and left it in the family room. His parents were excited to open up their first television, and after plugging it in they turned a knob and looked at the little window. Inside the box there was a man talking, and Dean walked around to the back to figure out how the man got in there. As the family became familiar with the television, Dean and Dawn’s mother set a viewing rule that stuck with us. We were allowed to watch only two half-hour shows a day, and were prohibited to watch any show with violence, such as Westerns. Dean chose all the funny shows — lots of cartoons, J.P. Patches, Brakeman Bill, Wanda Wanda, Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, and Groucho Marx. Dean watched funny shows carefully and mimicked many routines. He found he could always make his sister laugh and did so frequently.  Dean and Dawn never argued and always had fun together.

When Dean was four, some men delivered a Baldwin grand piano. At five, Dean started kindergarten and began taking piano lessons from a lady down the street. Every week for the next six years Dean and Dawn took swimming lessons from the beginning to the advanced classes. Their parents installed a swimming pool in the back yard, and Dean and Dawn swam daily.

In first grade Dean was one of the best readers in his class. His second-grade teacher was a square dance instructor, so by the age of seven Dean knew a large repertoire of square dances. In third grade he won a crossword-puzzle-making contest, and began cutting out articles from the newspapers on pollution and transportation issues. Dean’s father built him a large treehouse around seven trees, where Dean stored his collection of Mad magazines. By fourth grade Dean was in Cub Scouts, began playing the violin, started learning magic, taught himself how to type by diligently practicing each page of “Typing Made Simple,” and wrote, directed, and starred in his first play. He typed out his scripts on carbon paper so that each player had a copy, built his own props, and created special effects.

From a library book entitled “Magic Made Easy,” by Larry Kettlecamp, in fifth grade Dean performed his first of many magic shows; for Christmas that year Dean received his first magic kit. In an alley at the Seattle Pike’s Place Market, Sid Brockman owned a magic shop in a long narrow room; here Dean purchased the original set of Tarbell’s Course in Magic, an antique change bag and many other classic props that led to a career of performing. For years his dream was to become a famous magician.

In the ’40’s and ’50’s there was an amusement park by Bitter Lake in north Seattle called “Playland;” Dean’s favorite place to go was the Fun House, complete with funny mirrors, moving floors, rotating barrels, and slides. Starting in fourth grade he began taking private violin lessons from Theodore E. Dragoo, who taught him how to play the violin on his head, behind his back, under his leg and in his mouth, and to learn Irish fiddle tunes as finger exercises. By fifth grade Dean was first violin in the orchestra. Dean sang soprano in the choir, wrote and produced another play, had developed a keen interest in studying the weather and had developed the knack of correctly predicting it. With the aid of his mother and a friend who had built a stage in his basement, they organized and formed the Junior Magicians’ Club of Seattle, for 8-18-year-olds. From the start, Dean began performing magic professionally, and from the age of nine to eighteen Dean held every office in the club. Later he joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

By sixth grade he was typing 80 words per minute on an old-style typewriter. He wrote yet another play, learned and performed more magic, continued with both piano and violin, completed all his cub scout achievements, and began downhill snow skiing. Jim Whittaker, the first American to plant a flag at the summit of Mount Everest, was Dean’s ski instructor for his first two years of skiing. At the end of the season, Dean won a medal for first place in slalom. Dean’s father was the chairman of the Snoqualmie Mountaineer’s Lodge, so his family spent every weekend skiing there for over a decade. 

By sixth grade, Dean was a loyal member of the traffic safety patrol, was a dishwasher in the school lunchroom, and ran for student body president.  From the age of eight to sixteen he spent his summers at Hendersons’ Camps, where he lived in a tipi and learned archery, riflery, horseback riding, swimming, woodworking, campcrafts, folk-dancing, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, theatrics, storytelling, baking, Indian lore, pottery, and the skills of comradeship. 

During the summer between sixth and seventh grade Dean worked at a musical summer camp created by his violin teacher Ted Dragoo. His job was to assist the school director with set-up, to tune 80 violins during each recess, and a few times he was even allowed to conduct the orchestra. At the end of the camp, Dean performed comedy violin to the delight of all the campers, parents and staff.

Ted Dragoo was Dean’s mentor and role model. He was the most positive and creative person Dean had ever met. By himself Mr. Dragoo developed an entire elementary school orchestra, and taught every instrument to each of the members. In addition, he created an annual musical summer camp, complete with music theory classes, instrument instruction, and putting it all together into a full orchestra. For years, Mr. Dragoo would come to Dean’s house to teach private violin lessons. Dean would tape record every lesson, and would play each part of a duet so Dean could practice by playing the other part along with the tape. One day Mr. Dragoo brought an audio tape of a string quartet; he had dubbed himself playing each part, so the result was four violins playing perfect harmony. Another day, as Mr. Dragoo came to the door he bent over and smelled the flowers, saying “Take time to smell the roses, for they may never smell sweeter.” Mr. Dragoo’s positive attitude, creativity, drive, dedication, and love of music was a powerful influence in Dean’s life. 

From seventh to twelfth grade, Dean attended Lakeside School.   In seventh grade he produced a prolific amount of line mazes, performed magic before the entire student body, took up judo, oil painting and clay sculpting.  He played violin in the Seattle Youth Symphony, held several offices in DeMolay, and was President of the Junior Magicians’ Club of Seattle.  From 1958-1968 he frequented the Washington Athletic Club weekly where he took classes in judo, swimming, and private lessons from a professional magician. 

During his years at Lakeside Dean immersed himself in art, drama, music, and publications.  He was a photographer and writer for the school newspaper, yearbook, and literary magazine. The sports he most excelled at were judo, fencing, diving and swimming on the swim team, and running: he lettered in both cross-country and track (the mile: 4:49). In one race he ran ten miles in a little less than one hour.

It was a privilege to study fencing at Lakeside under Leon Oriel, an Olympic Medalist in fencing for France. He was an amazing man, originally from Lyon. One day he demonstrated a standing back flip. Dean was so impressed that he learned how, and for the next few years he would run up walls and flip. Fencing became a passion for Dean, and he became adept with complex maneuvers; he owned two foils and masks so he could practice with friends. At the end of Dean’s senior year, Lakeside won the state fencing championship.

During the weekends, Dean was a junior ski patrol at the Mountaineers Snoqualmie Lodge, trained in First Aid, controlling a toboggan down steep slopes, operating the tows, and skiing the back areas to check for stray skiers. He and his ski buddies made jumps, learned ski ballet and acrobatic maneuvers, and sought out challenging slopes. Occasionally Dean would ski at Crystal with his Lakeside friends, ten of whom were on the national ski demo team.

At fifteen Dean took the Mountaineers Basic Climbing Course and climbed several peaks, including Mount Baker.  He made two movies, acted in every play and musical, sang in the choir, and formed his own barbershop quartet. After school, he played violin in a string quartet and in the Seattle Youth Symphony. His sixteenth summer was spent at a horse and mountaineering camp in Colorado where he climbed three peaks in one day, rafted down the Colorado River and was the champion of the obstacle course.  During his seventeenth summer he was the counselor for the youngest boys at Camp Nor’wester. 

After studying Latin for four years, he went on to take two years of French in one year.  He was chosen to be the exchange student, learned Swedish and spent five months in Falun, Sweden.  Starting from the day he stepped onto the Norwegian cruise ship, Dean stopped speaking English until the day he returned to America where he graduated with his classmates, having earned a list of honors and credentials that ended up in a little box somewhere.

One memorable moment as a senior was the Duvall Piano Drop. Country Joe and the Fish sponsored a “Love-In” at a farm in Duvall, Washington, where a piano would be dropped from a helicopter onto a pile of stumps, and the sound of the impact would be recorded. Dean had just passed his driver’s test and gotten his license. He borrowed his father’s car, took a good friend with him, and filmed the event.

By his senior year it was time to choose a college. The University of Washington offered Dean a scholarship in photojournalism, but he opted to live farther from home and decided to go to Willamette on the advice of his school advisor.  Had Dean taken the scholarship his life would have gone a totally different direction. As it was, he made the most of his four productive years of college at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. 

As a freshman, he took a double load of courses.  For the first-day physical fitness test he did 32 consecutive pull-ups.  He continued with French, played a comedy violin routine in front of the entire student body, and joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity.  At Willamette at that time, Kappa Sigma was a group of intellectuals — the key school leaders in politics, publications, drama, art, music, and academics.  Throughout his four years there, Dean sang tenor twice a day in two different choirs, a madrigal group, and his own barbershop quartet.  He performed in every play, musical and opera.  His freshman year he was Stage Manager.

During his sophomore year he excelled in astronomy and public speaking — two of his most favorite classes — choreographed and performed several modern dance pieces, and took two years’ worth of German in one year.  As the Yearbook Editor, he not only personally shot and developed almost every photograph in the book (and got almost every professor to smile), typed the majority of the text and layout (no computers back then!) and designed the format, but he also compiled one of the most complete archives of the year’s events, including groups who were normally never considered for inclusion in the yearbook.

That summer the Willamette Choir toured Europe for five weeks, and Dean could speak the language of every country they visited.  After they went home, Dean stayed and hitch-hiked around Europe on his own for another month, ending up in Sweden where he revisited his host family.

During his junior year he was the Darkroom Manager where he spent many late nights developing film and enlarging pictures for all the school publications.  Between his junior and senior years he attended summer school at the University of Washington, where he took 25 hours of classes on elementary education, psychology, 19th century English literature, Shakespear, and teaching elementary science.  During this summer of total immersion into academics Dean began a prolific journal of his thoughts and comments on life, which now is the first of many volumes of writings.

As a senior, he took a year’s worth of Russian, graduated a half year early, and spent the second semester teaching five separate and totally unique classes of high school English at McNary High in Salem, OR.  Throughout his four years in college Dean always had a camera around his neck, knew every person on campus by name, and was very active in the Big Brother program, having not one but two little brothers himself.  Five of his summers were spent as a staff member at Camp Nor’wester on Lopez Island.  As vice president of Omicron Delta Kappa, a very selective leadership fraternity, he conceived of and instigated the first recycling program the school had ever had.  Every year he won the intramural cross-country race.  He marched against the war on Viet Nam and joined Ralph Nader’s ORSPIRG, The Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, and many other environmental organizations.  He got all the way through college without ever having smoked a cigarette, without drinking any alcohol, and without swearing. By the time he was twenty-one he could understand Latin, Swedish, French, German, Russian, and a little Norwegian, Italian and Spanish.

Dean packed his backpack, stuck out his thumb in front of his parents’ driveway, and began another of his biggest and most memorable adventures:  hitch-hiking around the United States — a fascinating trip that is now written as a book on his computer, entitled “Total Freedom.”  One highlight was participating in the Twin Oaks annual national commune conference and visiting a number of communes thereafter.

After college his life began getting interesting.  For the next year he had to decide how to make money, and started seventeen different businesses simultaneously to see which would take off.   Then he got a job as a door-to-door salesman selling home portraits all over the state of Washington.  After knocking on doors six days a week for half a year, he eventually worked his way up to being a photographer and finally became appointed as the head photographer in charge of hiring and firing the others.  He wrote a fifty page manual on how to run the photography portion of the business and then quit.  

The only reason Dean returned home was to prepare for his next adventure: a summer at Arcosanti.  While at Arcosanti, he read, studied and led discussions on Paolo Soleri’s writings and concepts.  He stayed beyond his workshop date and became an active leader, tour guide, and construction worker.  On his way home, he arranged to speak on Paolo’s arcologies at a number of Universities, for pay. Every other year for the next decade he returned to Arcosanti to attend the festivals and special events. At one of the largest festivals he was fascinated by a New Games group leading games with all the participants at once. Dean was so captivated by this concept of cooperative play and non-competitive games that he purchased and read all the books put out by the New Games Foundation and began playing and teaching games.

Once back, Dean had a job lined up as a preschool teacher at a day care center, where he literally lived in the 4′ attic with shingle nails sticking through the ceiling during the nights and spent his days with the children.  During his off hours he played violin in the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra.  Living with children seven days a week, he was inspired to learn more and to become more qualified, so he took a heavy load of early childhood education classes at Bellevue Community College.  In one of these classes one of his fellow students came to class one day in a clown suit to demonstrate some puppets she had made.  Dean asked if she would make him a clown suit in exchange for his taking her portrait.  The idea of being a clown was that someone somewhere was having a birthday every single day.  If this worked, there was potential for income.

Upon his next phone request for a magician, Dean suggested that he come as a clown instead, not really knowing anything about what to do; he just knew that he had always been good at being silly and making children laugh.  He donned his new clown costume and wig, stuffed things in the pockets, and with regular shoes, no make-up, no gloves, and no experience, he left for the party. At the party they played jump rope, walk the tight rope, and tie up the clown. He told the story of the Three Bears, helped with the cake and presents, and an hour and a half later the mother happily paid him the $5 he had asked for.  It worked!  Deano the Clown was born.

Now he realized he needed to learn more skills and to find more customers.  Subsequently, he joined the New Games Foundation, the Seattle Story Tellers Guild, The American Unicycling Society, the Uniques (a local unicycling club), the Cascade Jugglers, the Puppeteers of Puget Sound, he took up tap dancing, roller skating and ice skating, and got his “D” license in sky diving so he could jump into picnics and large events.  Deano took private lessons from “Dave the Balloon Man”, who at the time was by far the best balloon twister around.

Dean attended four unique week-long games-training sessions sponsored by the New Games Foundation, each in a different location: Vancouver, B.C.; Estes Park, Colorado; Carmel, CA; and Redmond, WA.  Later, he visited the head office of the New Games Foundation in SanFrancisco. By now he had developed a repertoire of nearly 600 games, and became one of the most active games leaders in the country, incorporating New Games into every performance and clown show every week from 1973 through 2019.

Also during this time Dean passed his ski instructor status with PSIA  for both Level One and Level Two in downhill instruction, as well as Level Two in Freestyle skiing. He had a special ski clown suit made, and spent six seasons as a ski instructor at Mt. Pilchuck.  He was in high demand for teaching children to ski. For twelve consecutive years, directly after returning from each weekend of skiing Dean spent three hours every Sunday evening enthusiastically participating in international folk dancing at the UW HUB. He learned hundreds of line and circle dances and was hooked on folk dancing for life.

Living in the attic in Bellevue was getting a bit cramped, so he quit his job,  got an apartment in Seattle, and  worked in a portrait photography studio on Pier 70.  Here his job was to take small photographs that were mailed in from all over the country and to enlarge them into 3’x5′ posters; he did this by photographing, developing, printing and mailing them to the mail-order customers, as well as photographing walk-ins and printing up poster portraits for them while they waited. After a half year working for someone else, Dean decided to be 100% self-employed.  He systematized his photography equipment and supported himself primarily as a freelance photographer, shooting mostly portraits, as well as weddings, daycare centers, and occasional models.  He was unusually good with children and animals.  During these next couple years he was also a manager at the Capitol Hill Food Co-op on 12th Street in Seattle.

The brakes went out on the car his grandfather had given him as a graduation present, and he decided to go for an entire year without driving a car.  He bought a second-hand bicycle and trailer, joined the PAC of the Cascade Bicycle Club, and successfully did all his travel for an entire year by bicycle.  He initiated the “bicycles on buses” program, did several talk series on KRAB radio, and submitted numerous designs and had many meetings with METRO until the bike racks actually materialized on the buses.  He was also active in the expansion of the Burke-Gilman Trail, Rails to Trails, and mapping bicycle routes. The Seattle Times wrote a full-page story about him traveling by bicycle as a clown and piano tuner.

  There was a series of fascinating presentations occurring at the Spokane World’s Fair, to which Dean hitch-hiked each month.  Also Dean attended an “Alternative Agriculture” conference and many conferences on “Alternative Waste Disposal.”  From these gatherings the seeds of many environmental organizations were planted, such as Tilth, The Abundant Life Seed Foundation, the Ecotope Group, the concept of Living Lightly, Ernest Callenbah’s Ecotopia, the master composter programs, the recycling programs, the OREplan, SeaNet, and more. Together with others at the Spokane conferences, Dean organized several Living Lightly Fairs, equivalent to today’s eco-trade shows, but on an educational rather than commercial basis.  These conferences in Spokane inspired Dean to buy a pedal-powered vehicle, to wear only natural fibers, to bicycle, recycle, conserve heat and energy, and to find out how purely eco-sensitively a person could live in the city.

While living in a group house in Seattle, Dean became a member of the extreme “Zero Garbage Club,” refusing to pay the mandatory garbage bill because his house produced no garbage. Any excess packaging was left at the store where the product was purchased. By gathering free wood from city dumpsters, his house was heated by burning wood in the old central coal furnace in the basement. 

One memorable weekend was spent at an enormous rock festival in Farragut Park, Idaho. Back in the city, Dean continued as a manager at the Capitol Hill Food Coop; he grew part of what he ate in his own back yard. Dean hosted a series of programs on KRAB Radio discussing recycling, bicycling, living lightly, and a telephone interview with Paolo Soleri describing his concept of arcologies and his prototype: Arcosanti.

The summer of 1977 Dean was the music director at Camp Nor’wester, and on his way home he stopped to visit two different friends on Whidbey Island.  At the first friend’s house he spent an afternoon sitting on the porch with his journal, designing the ultimate bathroom and how it would fit into a totally environmental house.  Little did he realize at the time that this design would become reality — these sketches became the beginning plans of Huckleberry Hill.  At the next friend’s house where he sat playing his fiddle around the fire with two other fiddlers, the other fiddler told him about a piece of land for sale. Dean thought, “Wow, I could put up a tipi on my own land!” Hardly able to sleep that night, the next day Dean took all his earnings from working at the camp and made his down-payment on a very wise investment.

Back in Seattle, Dean partnered with Len Dawson, who was building composting toilets out of ferrous cement on Indian reservations.  From this experience Dean wrote to Clivus Multrum and became a distributor.  In 1977 he bought his own Clivus Multrum to be used as the main waste system for his future house on Whidbey Island.

Land for a House Made Out of Garbage

 With his acreage on Whidbey Island Dean began designing and building an idealistically 100% environmentally conscious house using all recycled and reused materials.  He called it Huckleberry Hill.  Board by board the house slowly materialized out of his vison.  The goal was to prove that so much garbage was thrown out in the city that an entire house could be built from other peoples’ waste, and that is exactly what he did.  Although the original design was a cluster of seven hexagons, each with 15′ walls, ultimately the design became a cluster of three hexagons with a total of over 4000 square feet of floor space.  Some of the unique features are a 60’+ tower, a 50′ underground tunnel, three concrete slides, three hot tubs, a sauna and cold plunge, three playhouses, two zip lines, a large tire swing, three trampolines, a 100′-foot-long water slide, an archery range, solar water heater panels, exclusively composting toilets, LED lighting, EV charger, and a tiny house. Inside is LED lighting, 100% safe and plant-based household products, two refrigerators, two ovens, a fully equipped kitchen, multiple sleeping areas, and a room full of musical instruments, a loft and a wood stove. The house has optional heat sources: two wood stoves, a seven-burner ducted propane furnace, and a heat pump.

For next twenty years he invited everyone he knew (and that’s a lot of people) to his annual week-long birthday bash. These parties became quite famous.  Each year something different was highlighted, such as swimming, musicians, jugglers, improvisational theater sports, marionettes, stunt fiddling, story telling, unusual inflatables, woods games, story telling, waking to live harp music, and even a pie fight.  One year Dean sky-dived into his yard ten times in one day with some of his sky-diving friends.

By now he was becoming quite well known both as a photographer — taking portraits, shooting weddings, day care centers, filming models, and specializing in children and animals — and as a magician — performing at birthday parties, banquets, and company picnics.

Simultaneously, Dean was beginning to learn to tune pianos.  He joined the Piano Technicians Guild in 1973. That same year he went to an auction with a friend and bought his first piano; he accidentally bid himself up from $15 to $35.  Over time, he ended up collecting over 200 pianos, most of which he obtained for free.   Every month from then on he attended every PTG technical training session, seminar, convention and meeting offered in the area. Over the years, Dean held every office in the Seattle Chapter, including board member, newsletter editor, secretary,  President (2000 through 2002), and Vice President (2017-2021).

From 1972 through the mid 80’s he taught classes at the University of Washington Experimental College every quarter.  Some of his more popular topics were: “Improve Your Memory,” “How to Improve Your Conversation,” “Paolo Soleri’s Arcologies,” “Why We Laugh,” “The Joys and Woes of Being Self-Employed,” “New Games,” and “How To Decide What You Want To Do in Life and Get Paid To Do It.” During this time, he continued dancing Israeli and Greek circle and line dances every Sunday evening when he returned home from skiing.  To get around, his favorite mode of transportation was to drive his PPV (people-powered vehicle) which had adjustable bucket seats, stick gear shift, rear view mirrors, and pedals for both the driver and the passenger.  There was space in the back for fuel: a bag of groceries.

Also, during this period, he spent a full year seriously studying Swedish massage.  In addition, he took an in-depth class in foot reflexology.  Although he was qualified to take the Washington State exam for a professional massage license, his clowning career was beginning to bloom and whisked him off in other directions.  Because of his energy and talent and his interest in social, political and environmental issues, Dean became the host on a weekly KING TV quiz show called “The Great American Game”, in which two teams were pitted against each other to answer questions on local issues.

With his acreage on Whidbey Island Dean began designing and building an environmentally conscious house using salvaged, recycled, and reused materials.  He called it Huckleberry Hill.  Board by board, the house slowly materialized out of his vison.  The goal was to prove that so much garbage was thrown out in the city that an entire house could be built from other peoples’ waste, and that is exactly what he did.  Although the original design was a cluster of seven hexagons, each with 15′ walls, ultimately the design became a cluster of three hexagons with a total of over 4000 square feet of floor and deck space. 

Dean adhered to ten basic principles for the development of his place. His goals were:

1. to construct an entire house out of garbage— discarded materials — as a demonstration of how much waste still has value.
2. to design a structure that I could build from start to finish by himself.
3. to use locally available resources, materials and labor if necessary.
4. to incorporate non-toxic and net-energy efficient components.
5. to orient the structure to the environment aesthetically.
6. to fashion a self-sufficient space capable of operating comfortably with an autonomous source of power, water, heat, & waste disposal.
7. to employ renewable resources, such as solar, wind, rainwater, composting toilets, etc.
8. to make a living structure that is maleable and not confined to a rigid form, so that as situations change, walls and spaces can be altered, so that it doesn’t matter if things get banged or scratched, and the basic feel is one of comfort.
9. to create a space that never ceases to keep my interest and to inspire others.
10. to open the space to be shared with others.
11. to encorporate three primary components in every aspect of contruction — everything in the buildings and the yard must be:

• PRAGMATIC (practical, useful, functional)
• AESTHETIC (an art piece, beautiful to see and touch)
• PLAYFUL (fanciful, fun, frivolous, smile-producing, toys)

Some of the unique features are a 60’+ tower, a 50′ underground tunnel, three concrete slides, three hot tubs, a sauna and cold plunge, three playhouses, two zip lines, a large tire swing, three trampolines, a 100′-foot-long water slide, an archery range, solar water heater panels, exclusively composting toilets, LED lighting, a whole-house sound system, and an EV charger for his electric truck. Inside is LED lighting, 100% safe and plant-based household products, five composting toilets, two refrigerators, two ovens, a fully equipped kitchen, multiple sleeping areas, a room full of musical instruments, a loft and a grand piano. The house has optional heat sources: two wood stoves, a seven-burner ducted propane furnace, and two heat pumps. Outbuildings include a large conical workshop, an even larger metal building that at one time housed 64 pianos, two large concrete slabs, and an 8’x10′ tiny house complete with a desk, composting toilets a tiny kitchen, a closet, and a king-sized bed in the loft.

Over the years, Dean has had various kinds of livestock. For a while he raised goats, chickens, ducks, and maintained two beehives. For fifteen years he tended two hybrid wolves; one was a 90% white timber wolf. Cats and dogs have come and gone, but Dean has always had a dog.

For the next twenty years Dean invited everyone he knew (and that’s a lot of people) to his annual week-long birthday bash. These parties became quite famous.  Each year something different was highlighted: swimming, guest musicians, juggling, slack wire, stilts, unicycles, improvisational theater sports, marionettes, stunt fiddling, storytelling by the campfire, unusual inflatables, yard toys, woods games, hot tubbing, wood-fired sauna, folk dancing on the deck, rock dancing to laser lights and strobes, gay belly dancer, fire juggler, magician, waking to live harp music, massages in the tipi, playing on the water slide, a pie fight, and lots of live music. One year Dean sky-dived into his own yard ten times in one day with some of his sky-diving friends.

 At the age of thirty-eight Dean decided to relearn Russian in order to go skiing in Armenia.  While in Moscow he performed in Russian for an elementary school.  In what was then Leningrad he spent an afternoon conversing with a controversial painter who spoke only Russian.  In Armenia he was personally invited to partake in a private wedding feast, he played parachute games with children in a park, and he spent several days snow skiing.  During this time he spoke only Russian.
Then he returned to Sweden for his third time, where he visited the Clivus Multrum factory in Stockholm and met Mr. Lindstrom himself, the inventor of the Clivus Multrum, at his house on his 81st birthday.  He gave Dean a personal tour of all his original inventions.  He was quite excited to have any visitors at all, let alone an American who could speak Swedish and who knew about his toilets.  From there Dean revisited his exchange family in Sweden, went sky diving and snow skiing in Sweden, and realized that the one thing he still hadn’t done was to marry and have children.

 After numerous relationships with many wonderful women, Dean finally chose whom he thought would be his life partner.  Shortly after returning home, he married Lynda in 1988.  Micah was born a year and a half later, and so began Dean’s family life.  Lynda sold her house and the three moved from Seattle to Whidbey, where Lynda already had many friends and associates.

Lynda opened her own store, called Llynya’s in Freeland.  Her store has become a focal point on south Whidbey for personal and spiritual growth. Llynya’s is a metaphysical gift shop and healing center. Gifts range from books to crystals and many creations from artists around the country. Classes, readers and healers are available each month. The shop is full of magic with crystals, fairies, dragons, angels, sweet scents, great cards and delight in every corner! Personal assistance is available in selecting products and services that will support and enhance one’s spiritual journey. The shop space provides a relaxing and nourishing atmosphere and private space to meditate. Llynya is extremely honest, dedicated, and is a phenomenal listener.  She is dedicated and committed to helping others, and consequently she has gained much respect in the local community and receives countless compliments on herself and her store.  She is so artistic that everything she touches becomes beautiful.

After twenty years together, during 2008, Dean and Lynda became un-married.  Lynda changed her name to Llynya Nya Carey.

Micah learned to ride a unicycle while waiting for the elementary school bus, studied the piano for a while and then took up the guitar. During June of 2003 Dean and Micah traveled together to Sweden to visit the family Dean had lived with when he was 16.  Dean and Micah visited Arcosanti once for Arcosanti’s 25th anniversary, and once for Paolo Soleri’s 90th birthday. Micah attended the Langley Children’s Center (preschool), Wellington Montessori School, Langley Intermediate School, Langley Middle School, Langley High School, and Bayview Alternative School.  He attended Camp Nor’wester on Johns Island for three summers.  Micah is thoughtful and perceptive, uniquely creative, easy-going and congenial, has excellent eye contact, and shares a positive sense of humor.  He has many friends. He has studied Tai Chi and yoga, has become an excellent snow boarder and skate boarder, nurtures a small garden, has worked for a house painter, a mover, at the Bagel Factory, and many years for a landscaper. For years he has played in several marimba bands, has attended marimba workshops, and plans on travelling to Zimbawe to perform there. Currently he teaches marimba.

Dean’s mother lived to 97 on her birthday, but because she was 8 years older than his father, he out-lived her and died a month after his 90^th birthday. For his mother’s 90^th birthday, she took Dean on a Mexican cruise, eating, swimming, working out, relaxing, talking and being together, but the highlight was an elaborate zip-line excursion. It was during this cruise when Dean finished writing his first book on moving pianos.

Over the next decade Dean continued building his house out of found recycled materials, expanded and streamlined each of his businesses, and continually improved on the quality and professionalism of everything he did.  All of his businesses evolved and thrived, and because of them Dean has been on TV, the radio, and written up in the papers many times.  These businesses expanded and branched off in several directions.

• Deano the Clown built a vast local reputation.  He expanded his performances from private parties to include company picnics, festivals, and choreographed stage shows. His dream has long been to produce a series of Deano the Clown videos. He performed multiple shows a week every single week from 1973 until Covid-19 ended parties and gatherings in 2020. In 2023 he intends to do a series of original stage productions for his 50th anniversary: http://www.DeanotheClown.com

• Petrich’s Piano Shop business subdivided into tuning, repairing, moving, hauling away, and renting pianos. After 9-11 Dean stopped renting and started giving pianos away for free. He hauls away so many unwanted pianos that now he ships them to a store in Lima, Peru, where they are fixed and sold to happy new owners.

• The Clivus Multrum business grew to include the CTS, the Phoenix, the Sun-Mar, the Biolet, and other models of composting toilets, low-flush toilets and incinerating toilets, as well as graywater disposal, such as Spec Industry’s AIRR system, the now defunct Brac units, and EcoJohn’s alternative systems.  Starting with Multi-Pure water filters, Dean’s water filter repertoire grew into the entire spectrum of water treatment and filtration technologies, and in particular, into ozone and oxygen systems for well water; then it continued into rainwater collection and filtration.  The Fireball 2001 solar water heater series was added, which in turn branched into other solar products.  These water-oriented environmental alternatives became Aqua Alternatives.  This business has exploded into all facets of environmentally appropriate products, such as air purifiers, wind power, non-toxic household products, and more: http://www.EnviroAlternatives.com.

• More recently, Dean’s focus is primarily on water treatment and filtration. Although he sells several different technologies — compressed carbon block, reverse osmosis, chlorine, injection, aeration, ozonation, and oxygenation — he has found the ECOsmarte system be the most versatile, effective and minimal maintenance system for treating contaminants: https://www.WhidbeyWaterFilters.com

• Being health-conscious, in 1998 Dean added a fourth business and began working for a  unique,  environmentally conscious wellness company in Idaho that manufactures over 400 exceptional necessity items at reasonable prices.  Health, wellness and the environment all fit together. Find out how safe your place is: take the Healthy Home Tour.

Ever since he was little, Dean has wanted to write and be an author.  In grade school and highschool he excelled in creative writing, and he majored in English in college.  Although he began keeping a diary in elementary school, he started his first journal while attending the University of Washington in 1971.  Over the years he wrote over twenty-five hand-written journals, which have now, of course, continued on his computer.  For a period of time, his writing stopped when he got married and had someone to tell everything to.  However, his mind did not stop and moved in the direction of writing books to help other people.  In the midst of everything else he has been doing, he has slowly been managing to contribute to eight specific books that he would like to complete and publish.  Purchasing his first laptop in 2002 his ability to write was able to accelerate, and now he is writing weekly.  These are the books on his list:

AVAILABLE NOW:

• “How to Move a Piano by Yourself with the Wrong Equipment” (So you want to move a piano by yourself, huh?) Available to download from this link.
• https://www.PianoRecycling.org  started as a book but turned into a web site on what to do with unwanted pianos
• More Parachute Games Than Ever 
  Available on Amazon: click on this title, or search for the title.

IN PROCESS OF BEING WRITTEN:

• Total Freedom (diary of hitch-hiking around the U.S. at age 22: observations on life)
• Do Clowns Eat? (nearly 50 years of weekly experience performing as a clown: a comprehensive guide on how to be a successful birthday clown)
• Snow Skiing in Armenia (an unusual 2-week adventure in the U.S.S.R.)
• Business Training Manual (guidelines for a home-based business)
• Design Your Low-Budget Dream House (design and build a green, economical, comfortable and inspiring complete living space)
• How To Decide What You Really Want To Do in Life and Get Paid To Do It (making money that fits your values)

Dean is extremely goal-oriented and has achieved nearly every goal he has set for himself.  Probably his best attributes that have led to these achievements are that he is creative, energetic, patient, and sincere. He is intense and passionate in work, play, and politics.  Some of his global goals to help the world to be more livable are: to encourage tolerance; to provide pure fresh drinking water to as many people as possible; to increase organic local food production; to reduce population growth; to redesign the transportation system; to preserve the few remaining natural habitats; and to increase the number of individuals choosing to leave smaller global footprints by going solar, bicycling, recycling, non-toxic, electric vehicles, and organic.  Among his current personal goals are the following: to complete the eight books he has in process; to share his knowledge by writing, speaking, giving tours and teaching; to finish building his house; to travel; to ski as long as there is snow in the mountains; to share agriculture & produce from his land with the local community; to play more music with friends; and to enjoy family.

For years Dean has hauled away pianos for people who no longer want them or are not able to keep them. Rather than taking unwanted pianos to the landfill, Dean offered them for free, donating them to needy musicians, to charity auctions, and to foster families. Because he has become so well known for salvaging pianos, his shed began overflowing. Now he ships them to a store in Lima, Peru, where they are fixed and sold to new happy owners. If a piano is not worth rebuilding, he salvages all the usable parts for repairing other pianos, and he has a hefty supply of winter firewood. If you know any artists who want some unusual shapes and parts, they are welcome to take what they want.

Dean built a large house designed to be shared many people. After his marriage was over, Dean resumed hosting his annual birthday party, this time for three days — Friday through Sunday.

Over the years he raised several types of animals: goats, chickens, geese, ducks, and two bee hives. When his son was young and had friends over, they would catch and release lizards, salamanders, frogs, snakes, and occasionally birds and bats. Dean fenced in a large area in the woods, where for nearly fifteen years he cared for two hybrid wolves; one was a beautiful 90% white timber wolf.

During the nineties Dean housed nearly 70 homeless people over a period of seven years. Hopefully he helped the world in a small way. In October of 2017 Dean started an Airbnb in Freeland, WA, called the “Isolated Tiny House,” for one or two people who want peace and privacy.

His place is open upon appointment for selecting a free piano, and for viewing water treatment systems, composting toilets, green household products, and other environmentally friendly practices.

Covid-19 changed a lot of things in the world. One of them was the cessation of holding parties and gatherings with large groups. After performing almost weekly for 47 consecutive years as Deano the Clown — which is a long time for any career — Dean decided to retire from clowning.  For years he had dreamed of making a series of clown videos for children, but these may never happen. After having performed so many thousands of clown shows, it is now time to write the most complete book ever written on how to be a successful birthday clown, so that future generations have a detailed guide. This book will be his legacy.

The need to avoid personal contact due to Covid, the time spent in increasingly heavy traffic and long ferry lines to Seattle, the desire to spend more time locally, and the fact that Dean turned 70, all became good reasons for Dean to stop driving all over the place and to stay on the island. On May 15, 2018, Dean met Loli Fargo, and has been with her ever since. When she asked him, “Are you going to continue working from 70 to 80?” he realized she had a point. All his life he would say that when he got old, he would finally have time to write, to organize his photos, to finish his projects, and to take time simply to hang out with friends. It took a while to sink into his head the fact that now was the time to do everything he always wanted to do.

After having moved thousands of pianos, Dean is happy to let other people do the moving: they can read his book. Now if he does move a piano, he can choose the day and no longer works in the rain. If people want to learn, he is always willing to teach. He continues to be active with the Piano Technicians Guild and has several apprentices learning from him. He serves on the board of the Seattle Chapter of the Piano Technicians Guild as well as on the board of Music4Life.

A lot of people have bad water on Whidbey, so Dean decided that focusing on water filters, safe household products, and other environmental alternatives would be a positive way to spend his time and to produce an income locally with no deadlines, stress, or excessive travel, and without going into people’s homes.

Looking back, it is satisfying to know that Dean made all his money by making people happy — laughing with the clown, enabling pianos to produce beautiful music, turning awful water into pure, safe, delicious water, and simply maintaining a positive and humorous attitude towards life with whomever he was with.

During 2022 Dean volunteered to build tiny houses for low-income families. With time on his hands, Dean completed a long list of significant major house projects, published his second book, rebuilt some pianos and dismantled many more. In the future he hopes to travel again, this time with Loli.

Mark Twain once said that the best investment a person can make is a friend.
Keep in touch and come visit.