History

Faun, a 36 foot Blanchard Standardized Cruiser, was built and launched on June 19, 1926 on Lake Union, Seattle, Washington, by Norman J. Blanchard, (“Norman, Sr.”), of the N.J. Blanchard Boat Company from the Blanchard yard located at 3201 Fairview Avenue. In 1924, sensing a change in the yachting market away from large “one-off” vessels, Blanchard collaborated with naval architect Leigh H. Coolidge to develop a new raised deck cruiser. These vessels were marketed as “Blanchard Standardized Raised-Deck Hunting Cruisers”, apparently in reference to the then-popular sport of no-limit duck hunting on Lake Washington. While the boats caught on, the lengthy name did not. The design became very popular, and was reproduced by other yards up and down the West Coast. Eventually, Blanchard’s Standardized Cruiser, along with other boats of similar design, came to be generically referred to as “Dreamboats”, after the moniker given to vessels built later by Lake Union Drydock, despite LUDDCo's trademarking of that name. Technically speaking, however, they are different.Faun’s original purchase price was $6000, which at the time was equivalent to the purchase price of two or three nice homes. Her name has remained the same since her launching.

The boat was built for W.N. Winter of Medina, Washington. William Neal Winter was the president of Puget Sound Telephone, the phone company in Everett, a banker, a lumberman, had a gold mine in Northern California, and was the owner of a spectacular waterfront estate on Lake Washington, which featured a renowned grotto, 7-1/2 acres of gardens and five full-time gardeners whose efforts garnered Winter national gardening awards in the 1920’s.

Winter named the vessel Faun after his wife, Faun Twelves Winter, but the name itself refers to the creature of Roman legend, a wild forest deity, protector of herds and crops, whose mischievous antics are associated closely with the Roman god Faunus, whose Greek counterpart is Pan. The Faun is often depicted as half goat and half man, with a bottom half that includes a goat’s tail, flanks and hooves, and the top half of a man. Later depictions of Fauns show them entirely in human form, as a handsome young man, but with pointed ears, a small tail and horns. The Greek version of the Faun is the Satyr, but usually Fauns are thought of as being smaller and gentler than Satyrs. The female equivalent of these creatures is the nymph.