Kelly Garwood didn’t have to move mountains to open her practice in a new office. It just looks like she did from her operatories.

That’s because Mount Si, a mountain in the Cascade Range, towers over Garwood Dental’s backyard in North Bend, Wash. Though the new space is a mere three blocks from her previous practice, it appears worlds away. While Mount Si is omnipresent in North Bend, a small, idyllic town of about 6,000 residents, it’s even more noticeable from within Garwood’s practice.

“It sounds obvious to say it, but we have a mountain in our backyard,” said Garwood, DDS, a North Bend native. “Naturally, we wanted to capitalize on the patients being able to see the mountain. The first thing we did was lay out all the operatories so that all of them would have a fantastic view. Once those were laid out, the other working parts of the building just fell into place.”

After graduating from dental school, Garwood practiced in the Navy, moving multiple times. During that period, she met her now-husband, Troy. Though he was not from North Bend, Garwood started to get ideas about moving back home and bringing him along. “There’s a great sense of community here, so when the opportunity to come back presented itself, we jumped at it,” she said. “I really enjoy practicing here.”

It was 2004 when she bought her first practice in North Bend. Garwood was the third dentist to practice in the space, which had been built in 1982. For a few years, it was exactly what she needed. Then, it started to grow dated. She considered staying in the same space and revamping it, but ultimately started to look for new locations. “This is a really close-knit town, so I knew I wanted to stay,” Garwood said. “It wouldn’t be the same for my patients if I moved even to the next town over, and I wouldn’t have wanted to leave anyway.”