Ill children to play at Carnation Farm

The farmland that once was the home of "contented cows" may soon be filled with children's laughter.

Actor Paul Newman is expected to announce today that Carnation Farm will become the next Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill kids.

Newman, King County Executive Ron Sims and Tim Rose, a Costco vice president, will be at a morning news conference at the farm announcing the sale of the 810-acre historic farm to the nonprofit Camp Korey, said event spokeswoman Greta Smoke. The name memorializes Rose's 18-year-old son, Korey Rose, who died in 2004 from bone cancer.

Rose, of Auburn, has been working to establish Camp Korey since then, inspired by a video about the summer camps. In 2005, he announced a tentative deal with Quadrant Homes to build the camp on a 122-acre site next to Redmond Ridge East.

The deal apparently fell through, although Camp Korey continued to raise money to build a facility, estimated then to cost $30 million. Smoke and others declined to give further details about the sale until today's official announcement. Part of the Carnation Farm may already be usable as a camp.

Since 1999, Nestle Co. has used it as a regional training center. There are lodges on the farm, a commercial kitchen and several other buildings. According to the farm's Web site, they are available for group housing, social events and training.

The Carnation Co. raised prize livestock there for more than seven decades. Advertisements claimed products from the farm came from "contented cows," a phrase that became synonymous with the area. Much of the milk was canned under the Carnation Evaporated Milk label.

The nearby town changed its name from Tolt to Carnation in honor of the farm.

According to "A History of Tolt/Carnation," compiled by the Tolt Historical Society, Elbridge Amos Stuart started the Carnation Stock Farms in 1912. The farm's four-story barn, which can be seen across the Snoqualmie River while driving between Carnation and Duvall on Highway 203, was built in the 1920s, after the original barn burned.

A statue of Possum Sweetheart, the Carnation cow that set a world record for milk production, was erected at the farm's entrance in 1928 and became a popular landmark.

Newman founded the first Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in the late '80s in Connecticut. (The name comes from the 1969 movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," in which Newman and Robert Redford played robbers who were members of the Hole in the Wall Gang. That name comes from the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in Wyoming, a hiding spot for criminal gangs in the old West.)

There are now seven Hole in the Wall Gang camps in the United States and several in other countries. The closest one is in Santa Monica, Calif. They provide camping adventures and activities for children with serious illnesses or life-threatening conditions. Each camp staff includes a medical team.

Last year more than 15,000 kids stayed at no charge at Hole in the Wall camps.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com