James Owen, left, talks about the operations of the greenhouse as the current owner Sam Benowitz, right, explores the inside Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
Current owner of the Raintree Nursery Sam Benowitz holds onto the branch of a Fragrant Spring Tree Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton. The tree grows edible foliage and requires low maintenance.
James Owen, left, looks on, as the current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, right, talks about fig plants inside a greenhouse Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
Current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, right, watches as James Owen, left, talks about the process the plants go through before sale Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
James Owen, right, looks on, as the current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, left, points out the different places from around the United States that the plants will be shipped off to Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
James Owen, right, looks on, as the current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, left, talks about the tropical room inside one of the greenhouses Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
Current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, right, follows as James Owen, left, ducks under a tent fold into one of the offices on the property Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
A cold holding chamber is lit up as green tinted lights shine onto shelves full of plants Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
Roy Watkins, an employee of the nursery walks between shelves full of plants Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
Current owner of the Raintree Nursery, Sam Benowitz, right, looks at one of the conveyer belts as James Owen, left, points towards one of the offices on the property Tuesday afternoon at the Raintree Nursery in Morton.
When Sam Benowitz started Raintree Nursery in 1972, he had never run a business. His background wasn’t even in horticulture.
“If you feel that you can do something, you will eventually figure out how to do it,” Benowitz said. “If you don’t, you won’t even try.”
Benowitz started Raintree Nursery after working as a journalist for a few years. He had a love of agriculture and East Lewis County that stemmed from working on a dairy farm in Morton owned by Cliff and Anna Butts. Today, Raintree resides on Butts Road, named for the same family.
“It was down the road and we just ran (the business) out of a garage,” Benowitz said of Raintree’s early years. “We would go meet people at food co-ops, at like Seattle and Portland. That’s how we would deliver the plants — in the back of a pickup truck. We had just one 8 ½ x 11 page with four or five varieties of apples. That was it to start out with.”
Forty-five years later, Raintree ships all over the United States and has plants from every corner of the world.
“My experience was in journalism, so I knew how to communicate with people and tell the story about the plants,” Benowitz said. “People were interested in the plants and the stories about them. It slowly grew from there.”
Benowitz is selling the business to another hopeful newcomer to Morton — James Owen. Owen, 27, has lived in Seattle for the past several years. He moved out West from a small town in Minnesota and, come July 1, Owen will officially take over Raintree Nursery.
“I think this, to me, is one of the biggest economic opportunities for millennials and people are ignoring it,” Owen said. “It is a major buyer’s market for businesses right now. I hear about all of my friends in the city complaining about the same things. The same things I was complaining about when I lived in the city. ‘It’s too crowded, the cost of living is too high, there’s too much traffic, I work 70 hours a week for not enough money to afford living in the city.’ I think a lot of millennials will hopefully wake up and see that you can live a life without living in the middle of the city that is productive and profitable.”
When asked why he is selling Raintree, Benowitz replied unflinchingly, “Because I’m old.”
“I mean I’ve been doing it for 45 years,” Benowitz said. “I’m over 70 — I needed to stop at some point. I guess that’s the reason, or at least somebody told me that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Benowitz and Owen have known each other for nearly a year now. After the two negotiated the price and some of the finer details, Benowitz began teaching Owen how to run Raintree and Owen has been developing Raintree’s online marketing.
“In a way, when I first started talking to Sam, I remember feeling the way (he) described,” Owen said. “The emotions that sort of prompted (him) to say, rather than living in downtown Seattle, I’m going to go try and carve a life for myself out in a more rural area around less people — a lot of the same reasons that I ended up leaving Seattle. It’s a different pace of life out here and the way that (he) described it, I was like ‘that sounds exactly like the reason I’m looking at leaving the city.’”
Owen has a degree in construction management and came to Seattle to work on a project that lasted a couple years. He considered buying a house, but cited exorbitant home prices in the Puget Sound region as reason enough to consider other options. The alternative? Buy a business somewhere in rural Washington or Oregon and make a life for himself there.
“My friends will ask me a lot of the time, ‘why did you even start looking for a business to buy?’” Owen said. “It’s because there are tons of really great businesses that are out in the United States right now with people who have started them and successfully ran them their entire life, like Sam. But they aren’t necessarily tech businesses; they aren’t an app startup in San Francisco. It’s in areas where the cost of living is very affordable and they are businesses that don’t have anyone — the owners want to retire and the millennials aren’t lining up to buy them for whatever reason.”
Owen left his Seattle job in December.
“In a way, I think there is a huge market for that right now,” Owen said. “And opportunities for millennials — millennials who don’t want to be a computer developer and paying five grand a month to live in San Francisco. Rather than buying a house in Seattle, I am trying to do this and this actually generates income, unlike a house. It’s sort of an experiment I guess in a lot of ways. I have suspected for a long time that I would do something like this and now I’m in a position where I could. I think it’s a common feeling for a lot of millennials where they would rather live in a place that’s a little bit more affordable.”
Even after the sale closes in July, Benowitz will stay at Raintree for another year to assist Owen.
“The secret to success is just wake up in the morning and get to work,” Benowitz said. “Really, I could have stopped at any point in the last 45 years and it didn’t really matter. A lot of times I couldn’t stop because I owed money and I had to make money. In a way, the people that really succeeded, it doesn’t really matter how good or bad the reason was that they continued, but just that they continued. Over time, you figure it out. You make mistakes and figure it out.”
The nursery is located at 391 Butts Road in Morton.
