Before it became Russell’s Restaurant, the elegant white barn stored bales of hay as part of a 150-acre dairy operation.

Something caught Russell Lowell’s attention as he drove past the North Creek Valley, now known as the Technology Corridor in Bothell.

Lowell, of Lowell-Hunt catering fame, explains, “It was sometime in September several years ago. I was out on the road and looking across the valley. I thought how extraordinary the fall colors were. And it was mystical with the fog drifting among the colors in the crisp autumn air. There was a magic to the valley. Then I saw the barn. It was like seeing through a window to history. It took me back to my youth. It took me back to the Tom Sawyer lifestyle. It was so cool and I said to myself ‘Oh my! I’ve got to have that.’”

The barn that captivated Lowell’s attention once served as a hay barn. Built in 1927, it rested on a 150-acre spread as part of a dairy farm operation. Giant poplars, a farmhouse and other dairy barns also occupied the property.

In the 1930’s, Lloyd Mitchell bought the farm from the original owners—the McWhirter family. As part owner and manager of Van De Kamp’s, Mitchell supplied the company with dairy products. Van De Kamp’s used photographs of Mitchell’s picture-perfect cows and lush valley for advertisements.

Eventually Mitchell turned the business over to his daughter and son-in-law, Eleanor and Vern Fortin. The Fortins are best known today as the founders of QFC and Vernell’s Candies (for Vern & Eleanor).

Russell Lowell, owner of Russell’s Restaurant, also owns and runs the Garden Café at Molbak’s and Russell’s on Wall Street in Seattle.

The barn no longer stores hay. Now refurbished and boasting white paint, the barn houses “Russell’s”—a restaurant Lowell describes as “casual elegance.”

“I saw a need,” Lowell replies when asked what inspired him to start the restaurant. “There just isn’t a place in the Woodinville-Bothell area that serves day-to-day wine and food at reasonable prices.”

Russell’s opened in April, 2005. The interior displays a bucolic charm of sophistication with wooden tables adorned in white linen table cloths and fine glassware and walls displaying artwork. “I love art and I’m always changing it in the restaurant,” Lowell says. “In addition to paintings, I have bronzes and blown glass.”

Food is the main focus, though. “More and more people want an organic product and I use locally grown produce and meat. And as we approach fall, we’ll have wild game on the menu. Right now, halibut’s in season. Our sea scallops are incredible.” What doesn’t he have? “I don’t own a deep fryer. I can’t stand the smell of grease.”

Lowell got his start as a chef at 15-years-old. “I needed a job and so I applied at the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant in San Diego and was hired on as a prep cook. I was thrown right in with a French chef. It was hard core.”

He continued to hone his culinary skills at upscale restaurants, working from prep cook to chef. “About 16 years ago I was at a restaurant in Hawaii and I decided to start my own catering business.”

Before business parks sprang up in the North Creek Valley in Bothell, a picturesque dairy farm claimed the area as its own.

The business, Lowell & Hunt, thrived for 14 years. When business partner Jonathan Hunt moved on to other food opportunities, Lowell opened Russell’s in Bothell.

Lowell also owns and runs the Garden Café at Molbak’s and Russell’s on Wall Street in Seattle. His businesses allow him to give back to the community. He hosts 20 charitable events per year throughout the Pacific Northwest, raising money for Fred Hutchison Cancer Research and Children’s Hospital.

As a volunteer, he teaches in the culinary arts program at Shoreline High School. In winter he hosts his annual “Elk Camp in the Woods” —exquisite cuisine hosted inside tents out in the woods. Waiters in white shirts and black ties complete the charitable affair.

In September, Lowell will lend his culinary skills as well as hay loft to the James Beard Foundation’s Taste America event. Scheduled for Friday evening, September 28, Taste America will celebrate the James Beard Foundation’s 20th anniversary in Russell’s hay loft. The $150 per person dinner/auction benefits the Foundations of James Beard as well as the Pike Place Market.

Upon mention of the hay loft, Lowell offers a tour. Stairs or elevator transports visitors to the second floor. The loft is not open to the general public but available for business and social occasions. The gleaming hardwood floors, arched roof, towering glass windows, and finely fitted wood and trusses give it a reverential feeling of grandeur. The track and carriage, still in place as if ready to unload a bale of hay, evokes a link with the past. “Can you imagine this place full of hay?” Lowell asks his visitors who stand silently in awe.

Gleaming hardwood floors, arched roof, towering glass windows and finely fitted wood and trusses give Russell’s barn loft a reverential feel

Even if hay were still stored in the loft, it wouldn’t take away from the barn’s eminent distinction of making the past present.

But that’s not the only distinction at Russell’s. “We have free parking here,” Lowell says and then adds with a smile, “Now that’s something that’s rare in Seattle.”

Russell’s is located at 3305 Monte Villa Parkway in Bothell. For information, call (425) 486-4072.