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- Seattle Daily Times
February 1, 1976
News career helps in new HUD Job
A twenty year career in newspapers will stand Grace Basset in good stead in her new post as assistant for public affairs to Carla Hills, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Ms. Bassett, who was born in Spokane, was named to the job a week ago. She will handle relations with the press and the public, the first woman to hold such a job in a cabinet-level agency.
"I think my newspaper experience will give me a better understanding of the needs of the press and will allow for better communications, not just in Washington (D.C.) but some communication with cities and towns all over the country," Ms. Bassett said in a telephone interview.
She most recently was an urban columnist for King Features Syndicate and has been a staff writer on The Washington Post and The Washington Star. She has written award-winning articles on domestic issues, national political campaigns and Congress.
Her last assignment was in Vail, Colorado, covering the Christmas stay there of President Ford. She was to remain to gather material for a magazine article on his daughter, Susan, but it was put off so she took the opportunity then to come to the Northwest for a visit.
Ms. Bassett has friends and family in Spokane, including an aunt, Grace Jones, 86, who adopted Ms. Bassett six years ago after the death of her mother.
Ms. Bassett is a graduate of Whitman College and has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Mrs. Hills had said that even though this country was faced with so many problems in its cities and housing industry, she found this an exciting time to be in HUD. Grace Bassett echoed her comment.
"I think it's because times are so bad is the reason she wants to be here, and it's also one of the reasons I want to be here," Ms. Bassett said. HUD is in a position to go nowhere but up on the nation's problems because "we're down almost as far as we can be right now".
Ms. Bassett finds Mrs. Hills a stimulating person. "One learns a lot from her," she said.
However, she added, "I'm fundamentally a newspaper person, so I plan to do this only for a year". And then? "I don't know what happens next year. I don't even know what happens next week," she said.
Bassett Property on Newman Lake
Inland Northwest Land Trust
Nestled between the foothills of Mount Spokane and just a few miles from the Washington-Idaho border, Newman Lake is a large, roughly heart-shaped lake at the center of a growing bedroom community. One of this lake's most scenic features is a long peninsula that dips in toward its middle, dotted with rocky bluffs, ridges and towering evergreen trees, and surrounded by stony beaches.
At the tip of the peninsula, a slab of rock juts out prominently, offering a natural ledge for sitting and dipping toes in the water, or if you step higher, open platforms with expansive views. Legend has it that Native Americans held council meetings there, earning this lofty perch the nickname "Council Bluff".
A solitary old wood cabin sits back from the shoreline, leaving the peninsula largely uninhabited. It is visible from almost all areas of the lake - a natural oasis that conveys a feeling of remoteness, enchancing the scenic beauty of the landscape and thus the quality of life for summer and year-round residents alike.
Wildlife thrives here. Bald and golden eagles visit seasonally, competing with osprey, Canada geese and blue heron for the lake's bountiful fish and prime nesting spots in the craggy rocks along the shore. Ducks, barn swallows, woodpeckers, robins and goldfinches, blue grouse, ruffed grouse, coveys of quail, and wild turkeys also make their homes here. White-tailed deer frequent the point. Locals have spotted raccoons, porcupines, squirrels, rabbits, beaver, muskrat and other small mammals. An array of native plants including colorful wildflowers abide undisturbed.
It's no wonder Grace Bassett, who had inherited the property from a beloved aunt, decided that his living landscape was too precious to be sold to the highest bidder. Its distinctive prominence is a tempting site for an expansive lake home like the ones cropping up on other waterways in the region. But Grace reached out to the Inland Northwest Land Trust to help her preserve this signature property, and committed to find a buyer who would honor the covenant of a conservation easement and protect the natural open space that so distinguish the land and the lake.
Eighty-year-old Bill Aldworth, who lived on Puget Sound, had only a passing acquaintance with land trusts when his grown daughter Susan introduced him to the Bassett property on Newman Lake. When his four children were young, their grandmother had taken them to her cabin in Maine, instilling in each of them a deep appreciation for the treasures and joys of a lakeside vacation home. But even Bill was surprised at how this unique spot on Newman Lake rekindled a reverence for the land that brought his growing family together.
The Aldworths visited extensively with INLT and Grace Bassett to understand the preservation goals and the benefits of purchasing property protected by the Land Trust. Grace brought in neighboring landowners, the Hoadley family, year-round occupants of the adjacent property, and the Eagle family, who used their portion of the peninsula as a summer retreat. Together, the families and the Land Trust shaped a conservation plan that met Grace Bassett's vision and will preserve the tip of the peninsula forever in its natural state.
"The thing is," Bill Aldworth explains, "We know this land will not be divided as it passes from one generation to the next. The decisions have been made. We're sharing it. Keeping it whole and natural is what's keeping it unique, not only for our families, but for every family on the lake."
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Bassett Family Association Database
