The name came from grief. In the 1930s, three brothers named Dodd partnered with Walter Nettleton to run a dairy farm on the old Willowmoor estate at the north end of Lake Sammamish. When Nettleton's young daughter Mary died in a bicycle accident, the brothers renamed the farm Marymoor in her memory. Nearly a century later, that name belongs to King County's largest, oldest, and most popular park -- 640 acres where more than three million people come each year to cycle the velodrome, walk the Sammamish River Trail, fly model airplanes, attend summer concerts, or simply let their dogs run. The park's origins in private loss and private wealth give it an emotional depth that its sprawling recreational surface does not immediately suggest.
Before the dairy farm, the land belonged to James Clise, a Seattle banker who built his country retreat here in the early 1900s. The Clise Mansion still stands at the park's western edge, along the Sammamish River, its grounds designed by the Olmsted Brothers -- the same landscape architecture firm that shaped Central Park's legacy across the nation. The mansion earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places, and it remains one of the finest examples of early-twentieth-century estate architecture in the region. Clise named the property Willowmoor, and the willows he planted still shade the riverbank. The transition from private estate to public park was gradual. After the Dodd brothers and Nettleton ran their dairy operation from 1930 to 1964, King County eventually acquired the land and opened it as a park, preserving the mansion and its Olmsted-designed landscape as the anchor of a vastly expanded recreational complex.
Marymoor's velodrome is one of the few purpose-built cycling tracks in the Pacific Northwest, a banked oval where riders lean at steep angles and pace lines whip past at speeds that make the surrounding parkland blur. The track draws competitive cyclists from across the region for racing programs that run through the summer months. But the velodrome is just one edge of Marymoor's athletic identity. The Sammamish River Trail begins here, stretching north along the river toward Bothell and connecting to the broader regional trail network that links Redmond to Seattle's Burke-Gilman Trail. On any given weekend, the trail hums with joggers, families on bikes, and dog walkers heading toward the park's 40-acre off-leash area, where dogs swim in the Sammamish Slough and chase balls across open meadow. A radio-controlled aircraft flying field occupies another corner, its model planes buzzing overhead in tight circuits.
When the concerts start, Marymoor transforms. The summer series, produced by AEG Live, brings national touring acts to an outdoor amphitheater ringed by Douglas firs, and the crowd spills across a lawn that holds thousands. On non-concert evenings, the park runs outdoor movies, projecting films onto screens set up in the open air while families spread blankets and unpack coolers. At the western end, the Marymoor Community Gardener's Association cultivates 2.1 acres of plots that rank among the oldest community gardens in the country, a quiet pocket of tended rows and trellises within a park that otherwise favors big, active recreation. The contrast is deliberate: Marymoor has always been a place where different uses coexist, from the contemplative to the boisterous, and the park's sheer size absorbs them all without friction.
In 2022, the King County Council passed a motion supporting the development of a cricket facility on twenty acres of Marymoor's land, a reflection of the sport's surging popularity in the Pacific Northwest's increasingly diverse communities. The proposed ground was named as a potential venue for Major League Cricket and the United States national cricket team, and even floated as a possible site for the 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Construction timelines have slipped -- discussions were still ongoing through 2024 -- but the proposal itself says something about Marymoor's evolution. A park that began as one banker's private retreat, became a dairy farm named for a dead child, and grew into a county-wide recreational hub is now adapting to serve a population whose pastimes span continents. The Clise Mansion still stands by the river, the Olmsted willows still shade the bank, and three million visitors a year keep finding new reasons to come.
Marymoor Park sits at 47.659N, 122.109W on the north shore of Lake Sammamish in Redmond, Washington. The 640-acre park is visible from altitude as a large green expanse between the lake and Redmond's suburban grid. The velodrome oval is a distinctive feature, and the Sammamish River winds along the park's western edge. Lake Sammamish itself is the key landmark -- Marymoor occupies its northern tip. Nearest airports: Renton Municipal (KRNT) 12nm southwest, Boeing Field (KBFI) 14nm west-southwest, Paine Field (KPAE) 20nm north. Best viewed at 3,000-4,000 feet approaching from the south over Lake Sammamish, where the park's scale relative to the surrounding Eastside suburbs is most apparent.