About Bainbridge Frog Rock
The people behind the frog.
Bob & Ellen Green
Creators of Frog Rock
In 1971, Bainbridge Island teenagers Bob Green and Ellen Barnes painted a split roadside boulder at Phelps and Madison—and unknowingly created one of the island's most enduring landmarks.
More than fifty years later, Bob and Ellen remain at the heart of Frog Rock. Bainbridge Frog Rock works closely with them to preserve its history, share their story and carry its wonderfully peculiar spirit forward.
Writer, filmmaker & steward of Bainbridge Frog Rock
Denise Stoughton
Denise Stoughton has a particular affection for the things that make Bainbridge Island unmistakably Bainbridge—the eccentric, beautiful, handmade and occasionally inexplicable things that become part of a place simply because people love them long enough.
She is a writer, filmmaker, designer, preservationist and cultural storyteller whose work begins, more often than not, with noticing.
Long before Frog Rock became her focus, Denise was chronicling the character of the island and the people who make it distinctive. Her writing has appeared in regional and national publications, including a cover story for The Seattle Times Magazine about Bainbridge Island's extraordinary collection of handmade mailboxes—a story islanders still remember simply as “Fabulous Mailboxes.”
Then there was Frog Rock.
What began with curiosity about a beloved roadside landmark became an ever-expanding project in storytelling, preservation and imagination. Denise produced The Story of Frog Rock, the first documentary devoted to the landmark and the people who created it; established Frog Rock Week; developed BainbridgeFrogRock.com as the definitive historical and visitor resource for Frog Rock; and led the effort to secure recognition for Frog Rock on the Washington Heritage Register.
Through Bainbridge Frog Rock, she works closely with Bob and Ellen, local artists, makers, businesses and community partners to carry the landmark's story forward without losing the wonderfully peculiar spirit that made people love it in the first place.
Today that work encompasses preservation and historical research, film, public programming, original merchandise, artist collaborations, community events, the growing Woodland World of Frog Rock—and more than a few ideas that probably sounded unreasonable until they happened.
Her contribution has been to notice just how much was already there—and then give it the attention, imagination and room to become something more.
She lives and works on Bainbridge Island, where she remains professionally interested in things other people might drive past.
Get in touch
Press, partnerships, Frog Rock appearances, licensing, collaborations—or something wonderfully unexpected.