Sea Cliff Gardens has welcomed travelers since 1998, and it has long been known as one of the premier bed and breakfasts in Port Angeles. The inn was built for one purpose, to give every guest the view across the Salish Sea from the top of a 130-foot cliff, and it has been doing that ever since.
BJ and Frank Patton designed and built the inn in 1998 after years in the construction industry in the South. Frank led the design and construction, laying out the house so each suite looks out over the water. BJ, a master gardener, planted the gardens, and the couple traveled to Germany and the UK to collect the Victorian antiques you'll find in every room. The inn first opened as BJ's Garden Gate, and its gardens were later featured in Garden Design magazine.
The property stretches 1,000 feet from the road to the bluff, and guests often say exploring it feels like walking through a fairy tale. Old-growth cedar forest and rhododendrons fill the front of the grounds. Out back, bordered perennial and ornamental shrub gardens run all the way to the edge of the cliff above the ocean.
More than 10,000 plants of about 200 species grow here, and about 2,000 guests a year share them. Bill has cared for every bed since 2014, so there's color to find in every season.
Bill and Laura Segil bought the inn in June 2014, drawn by its reputation as one of the premier B&Bs in the area.
Bill fell for the Pacific Northwest during four years of college in Portland, Oregon. At 19, he explored Olympic National Park and the Sequim-Dungeness Valley and put the area on his list for a future chapter of life. He went on to spend 20 years in the packaged media industry with Disney and other global companies, from VHS to Blu-ray, while Laura owned a successful art gallery in the Los Angeles area. The original oil paintings hanging throughout the inn came from her collection.
Today Bill tends the gardens, using skills he picked up as a child caring for the 3.5 acres of perennial gardens his great-grandfather planted on the shore of Lake Michigan near Chicago. Laura bakes the treats guests look forward to and also owns a gift shop in Sequim.
"The moments that sum up why I still enjoy running the inn are learning new things from our guests every day over breakfast, sharing the wonders of the area and guiding them in their exploration, and the peace and happy times in the gardens."
Bill Segil
