Face masks helped filter the smell of dust and mildew as a crew set about the unusual task Thursday of tearing down an original house of Seattle’s Millionaire’s Row, the 14th Ave E entryway to Volunteer Park.

Also unusual for a Capitol Hill demolition: The house will be replaced by another single-family home — not apartments, not townhomes.

Fenced-off earlier this month, the early 1900s house just south of E Aloha has hosted salvage and work crews in recent weeks in preparation for its final day. Neighbors gathered, many masked under COVID-19 recommendations, to watch the two and a half story, 3,900–square-foot house and detached garage be ripped apart.

(Image: King County)

Things were set in motion for the project in an early 2018 transaction that saw the home sold for $2.4 million. The new owner’s identity is also masked, listed as the Surf and Turf Land Trust, an entity that first appeared in area records related to a $3.3 million home above Madrona Beach and a more than $10 million property in Medina.

Whoever the new owner is, they’ll find a present-day Millionaire’s Row that is mostly preserved. CHS talked with neighbors from the street late last year about their work seeking federal recognition of the historic area just south of Volunteer Park where well-known businessmen and robber barons built some of the grandest early homes in Seattle.

A block west east and a few blocks south, zoning has invited increasing density on 15th Ave E including a five-story mixed-use development that will eventually replace the old Hilltop Service Station.

After the demolition is complete, there will be another new, grand home — slated to rise three stories with a connected garage and a design by RHO Architects —  built on 14th Ave E.

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.