Drive by too fast, and you might miss the new bakery in Freeland. But you certainly won’t miss the building that houses it.

Mark Myres, the owner of Billy’s Bakery and creator of its building, hopes once customers have been to the bakery they won’t forget where it is. He can’t: He put two years of his life into it.

“It’s starting to come to life,” said Myres. “To smell it coming to life is pretty exciting.”

Right off the side of Highway 525, behind the Freeland sub station and next to the Frontier Industries lumber yard, Myres acknowledges it might be a strange place for a bakery to sit.

“I’m behind a sub station and a lumber yard,” he said.

So Myres built the bakery to compliment the lumber yard building and designed the landscaping to make the sub station disappear from view.

His plan worked. The building, constructed in part with lumber salvaged from old barns and topped with a cupola Myres spent months building in his back yard, is a labor of love that overshadows every other structure in the area.

So what makes someone build the fanciest bakery on Whidbey?

“I honestly don’t know,” he said.

In 2000, Myres was facing back surgery that involved fusing together bones worn down after years of building houses. It was then Myres realized he needed to make a career decision, as the surgery could have left him paralyzed.

It was then he decided to go into the baking business.

This week, as he put the finishing touches on the building, Myres acted like an excited school boy as he talked about his new bakery. On Tuesday night, he sat in a leather chair next to the fireplace in the coffee bar area of his new bakery and restaurant, possibly reclining for the first time since he began building in January 2001.

“There’s no place to get a homemade soup and sandwich,” Myres said while he propped up his feet. “I said ‘We need another bakery and I’m gonna build one.'”

Myres said he felt the loss of the Freeland Bakery was tragic for the Freeland area, and went ahead with planning the bakery on a piece of land he bought from his brother, Steve, three years ago.

Since his surgery, Myres has never felt better. While he gives credit to the many people who helped him build the bakery, it has been his baby since 2000. With the bakery constantly on his mind, Myres has been collecting memorabilia to adorn it inside and out.

On a road trip to Wyoming on his motorcycle, Myres said he traveled only on the back roads to find old farms. Stopping along the way, he asked farmers if they had old implement tractor seats he could have to use as lunch counter stools.

Those stools, sandblasted and mounted on pivoting post, fit well in a building that feels old, even though it’s brand new. Wooden beams from a Whidbey Island barn frame the inside of the bakery. The remains of a ladder poke down from the ceiling.

Older South Whidbey residents will probably have Myres’ late father, Billy, come to mind when they enter the new building, since that is where it gets its name. Talking about his father is the one time the smile disappears from Myres’ face, and tears well up in his eyes.

Myres said he was the “Son of Billy” to everyone who knew him, and out of respect for his father, decided it would be a great name for the business.

So when will it open? The curious continually drive through the parking lot of the new bakery, trying to get a peek at the restaurant and guesstimate when it might open. Myres said inquisitive people stop by almost constantly.

“This happens all the time,” said Myres while laughing.

The bakery’s dining area is split into two areas, the cafe and the coffee bar. The cast iron seats from the old farms, each from a different implement, are mounted at a wrap-around lunch counter. A few booths and tables are placed around the room giving diners many options for attacking their morning donuts.

In the coffee bar area, an assortment of books surround a brick fireplace. Computers can hook up to the wall ports, or beam up through a Wi-Fi wireless connection if their owners have the required antennas. Several leather chairs and wooden tables ask for someone to cozy up with a good book, newspaper or work on a project while away from the office. A drafting table in the corner assures patrons that no one has been forgotten.

Now the question is “Who wants to eat food made by a builder?”

“I tasted the food of my mother, and I know what good is,” Myres said, smiling.

He added that he has hired several people to cook and bake, including some from Mike and Cindy Hoffman’s Freeland Bakery. Joan Lehman will prepare meat and soups, and Lailoni Cota — a graduate of Seattle Culinary Art Institute — will take on the role of the head pastry chef.

Myres said the bakery will serve just breakfast and lunch. “The treats” as Myres calls them, cannot be forgotten. A full line of donuts, muffins, cookies, scones, danishes, eau claires, tortes, custards, cakes and five types of bread. For that caffeine fix, a full espresso bar, coffee and tea will be offered.

In the next few months Myres will add black and white photographs of the Freeland area because having a taste of history is important to him.

“I wanted to put in a little bit of what Whidbey Island means to me,” said Myres nostalgically. “It feels sometimes like I’ve been here forever.”