Port Orchard | From mobiles to mansions

In the market for a home but not really sure what you're looking for? Something within the range of, say, $150,000 and $1.5 million? Keeping an open mind regarding ramblers, shanties, mobiles or mansions ("Mc" and otherwise)? If so, Port Orchard might be just the place for you.

"It has a huge diversity of people and housing, from very affordable to very luxurious," says Jacqui Curtiss, managing broker of the John L. Scott Real Estate office in Port Orchard.

And if it's tough enough to define a typical Port Orchard property, it may be even harder to say exactly what Port Orchard itself means.

Check out a map of the area, and the little notch marking the city's official limits seems small. But sprawling out from it in three directions — every which way except where blocked by water — are unincorporated areas often known as Port Orchard, too.

Whether you want old or new; fixer or fixed-up; waterfront, lakefront, wooded acreage or horse property, there's likely to be a place here that fits the description.

As for the city itself — the town's incorporated section — its identity is only a little less hard to pin down.

"It would be nice if we could find a theme," says Wally Clark, a librarian and longtime resident of the downtown area, mentioning Poulsbo's Scandinavian flavor as an example.

"We've been looking for a solid vision [from the city leaders]," he says, "but what it's going to be, I don't know."

Apparently that's an old story.

The city has been the Kitsap County seat for more than a century, winning the title away from Port Madison on Bainbridge Island in an 1892 general election. But even then, the town's identity seems to have been tentative.

It had been incorporated two years earlier with the name of Sidney, after Sidney Stevens, an inventor from Illinois who had bought nearly 100 acres of South Kitsap land. Then in 1903 the city changed its name — choosing Port Orchard, a name that West Bremerton (then called Charleston) had also wanted.

Even now it's easy to feel that things here might suddenly shift — a sense felt most keenly while driving around town. One minute, for instance, you might be passing a rundown mobile home or house; the next, turn a corner and, boom! You run right into a development of tidy new homes. Outside of the city limits, the housing patterns are a bit clearer.

Drive east and you're likely to end up surrounded by ramblers, most of them 1,000 to 1,600 square feet and less than $300,000.

Head southwest and check out the more upscale McCormick Woods area, where most prices are from $450,000 to $650,000 for homes in the 2,000-to-3,000-square-foot range.

Hug the coast for view-rich communities, such as Watauga Beach to the northeast, where waterfront homes cost from about $700,000 to $1 million.

And head southeast to find homes with a bit of acreage around them, with prices running from about $300,000 to $600,000.

And if, after all that, you haven't found what you're looking for in this community of endless diversity, it might be time to stop searching and beat a retreat to somewhere serene and secluded ... like the quiet, old lakeside haven of Pilgrim Firs found in — where else — Port Orchard.