A nudist beach. A children’s playground. An embattled mayor. And a chain-link fence. The common thread is a sordid and silly episode that has roiled Seattle’s politics – and its summer by the lake. The saga began in November 2023, when an anonymous donor offered $550,000 (€469,000) to fund a playground in a lakefront park. The gesture quickly raised eyebrows for being situated in a spot known more for lowered trunks.
 
Public nudity is legal in Washington state provided that there is no lewd conduct. Denny Blaine Park has been an informal nudist beach on Lake Washington, Seattle’s most popular swimming hole, since the 1970s. Once a favoured haunt of the city’s lesbian community, it earned the nickname “Dykiki”. Today the patch of green welcomes all who prefer a dip au naturel and has managed to retain a counterculture feel, despite being wedged between waterfront mansions in the lakeside district.
 
The ostensibly charitable act, then, was seen as a ruse to evict the park’s regulars. Nudity around children being construed as lewd and all. A park advocacy group sprang up and sounded off at public meetings throughout the winter in opposition to the project, leading the city to back off from the proposed play area. The group also pledged to volunteer for park beautification projects and strategise ways to discourage any inappropriate behaviour. But a mystery remained. Who was the donor?

Local journalists filed public records requests for mayor Bruce Harrell’s text messages and found the answer: a shopping-mall magnate who happens to be the park’s nextdoor neighbour. He alleged nude parkgoers were doing more than just sunbathing and texted some naughty photos to prove it. The mayor sympathised in response – “I share your disgust” – and directed his parks department to act.
 
But the rigid strictures of municipal bureaucracy don’t easily mesh with the freewheeling culture of a West Coast nude beach. Ahead of the summer of 2024, the parks department tried to demarcate clothing-required and optional zones but that scheme also crumbled in the face of public opposition. Parkgoers were unwilling to be treated like property parcels on a zoning map. An idea to assign park rangers was also floated. But would they wear a uniform or attempt to blend in? 
 
Then came a shot across the bow. This spring, neighbouring homeowners filed a lawsuit against the city for not clamping down on being lewd while nude. In July, a judge ruled that nudity at the park had become a “public nuisance” due to the prevalence of some bad actors and gave the city two weeks to come up with a plan. The ruling forced the city’s hand and earlier this month, the parks department erected a chain-link fence (albeit wrapped in an opaque green mesh). The barrier separates the park’s beach from its inland grassy section and the department posted signs which, for the first time, formally designates the lakefront area as clothing optional.
 
This month also saw mayoral primary elections. Harrell, a seasoned politician, finished second to a challenger running her first ever campaign. Denny Blaine Park was hardly the only issue on voters’ minds but his clandestine acquiescence to an imperious peeping tom neighbour does not appear to have endeared him to the electorate.
 
The fence has not been universally welcomed. Perhaps inspired by Ronald Reagan’s admonition “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, someone did just that on the barrier’s first night. It’s a sign that, even as summer comes to a close, the combatants in the Battle for Denny Blaine have not yet laid down their arms – even if they have dropped their drawers. 
 
Gregory Scruggs is Monocle’s Seattle correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

This story originally appeared in The Monocle Minute

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