A Legacy That Melts In Your Mouth -- Boehm's Tour Showcases Chocolate - And A Touch Of Eastside Alps

ISSAQUAH - You won't find an Oompa Loompa at Boehm's Candies, but the house that chocolate built is every chip as odd as Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And here, you don't have to find a golden ticket to score a tour.

At Boehm's Candies, a chocolate factory, chalet and chapel, it's all about the man behind the macadamia-nut clusters. For nearly 20 years, the Issaquah factory has been providing tours behind the front counter so chocolate lovers can learn about candy man Julius Boehm and his legacy.

Originally a Seattle candy store, then a small stand in Issaquah, Boehm's Candies now covers three acres and ships its chocolate all over the world. A petit chocolatier, it produces roughly 400,000 pounds of chocolate a year, much of which is produced in the kitchen behind the store. The tour starts outdoors at a log fountain adorned with wooden St. Bernard dogs next to the chalet, then proceeds through the late Boehm's home above the candy store, the kitchen (samples!) and to the chapel he built as a memorial to his fellow mountain climbers.

A piano builder-turned-career officer in Austria, Julius Boehm fled to Seattle in 1940, after the Germans occupied his homeland, and opened a candy store here. But his heart remained in Europe. In fact, he seemed obsessed with building a new Austria. He moved his company to Issaquah in 1956 because it reminded him so much of his origins. The Edelweiss chalet, which houses the candy store and his living quarters, looks like the home of Swiss Miss. Among its highlights are prominent, wall-mounted antlers, a stained glass window depicting a scene from "Hansel and Gretel," Alpine woodwork, window flower-boxes and that distinctly Bavarian brown paint job with the red and green trim. Since Boehm passed away in 1981, tour groups have been traipsing through his home and factory.

Save the shag carpeting, the dark, macho interior reveals little of the fact that the chalet was built in the 1970s. Boehm hid modern conveniences such as his stereo, television and refrigerator in oak cupboards. The stools around his dining table are little wooden barrels and a music box sits in the corner of the kitchen; there's even a cuckoo clock on the kitchen wall.

Olympic rings are carved into the chalet's front door. Boehm had carried the torch for the 1936 games. In addition to playing 14 different sports, he climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier when he was 75 and 80. Wall plaques and framed photos commemorate his many climbs.

"As a first generation European, Julius wanted to build a reflection of his heritage," says former head chef and present owner Bernard Garbusjuk. "Even if it's old fashioned, to us it's real. We're not trying to be avant-garde."

Art takes up the rest of the space in his house, ranging from religious paintings to bronze sculptures of Native Americans. The TV room with its cupboard-concealed 30-inch television is dominated by a reproduction of "The Trial of Christ."

Replicas of other well-known pieces are sprinkled throughout the buildings, such as Michelangelo's Pieta and the creation of Adam from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Even the chapel is a copy of one built in the 12th century near St. Moritz. The replicated art alone draws many visitors to Boehm's.

The little chapel also brings plenty of visitors; more than 300 marriage vows are exchanged each year less than 50 yards from the espresso stand.

If the rest of the property is a little truffle of Europe in the Pacific Northwest, the chocolate factory is Kitchen Aid circa 1950s. Stainless steel tables hold cooling caramel, massive mixers smooth out the melting chocolate, and two old ladies with bouffants sit at a table swirling chocolate around cherry cordials by hand. A photo of a chocolate-smeared Lucille Ball from the "I Love Lucy" chocolate-dipping episode hangs overhead.

And that sweet, milky, heavenly aroma . . . the hills are alive with the smell of chocolate. Tour groups turn positively Pavlovian when confronted with big vats of gooey liquid chocolate, trays of chocolate fish and smooth little creams and clusters nestled into foil-wrapped boxes. It's enough to make you cuckoo for cocoa stuff.

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Boehm's Candies offers free tours daily except Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. through September. Reservations are required, so be sure to call in advance.

Chocolates cost between $13.95 and $19.95 a pound.

From Interstate 90 at Issaquah, take Exit 17 to Front Street. Turn south on Front Street, then turn left at Gilman Boulevard. Boehm's will be on your left at 255 N.E. Gilman Blvd., Issaquah. Store hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Call 425-392-6652.