The Seattle City Council is set to put its stamp of approval on a new Capitol Hill landmark.
Wednesday, the Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee agenda includes a vote to pass an ordinance extending landmarks controls on the Burwell House on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row.
CHS reported last year on the process for the 1904-built 14th Ave E house as the landmarks board prepared to approve the nomination. Continue reading
From the @harrysgoodtimes announcement of The Baillie
A new life for the Shafer Baillie Mansion will create a new boutique hotel and restaurant on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row.
The Baillie is slated to open next year inside the mansion that has stood at the 14th Ave and Aloha just down the street from Volunteer Park for 113 years.
CHS reported here in February on the sale of the historic bed and breakfast as its longtime owners prepared for retirement.
The $4.9 million sale was finalized in March but a plan has been in the works for months to shape the project.
The buyers are familiar with food, drink, and hospitality in the neighborhood. Continue reading
“The Caroline Horton House over time. (a) architect’s rendering of the house (Seattle Times, November 25, 1906); (b) 1937 archive photo (Washington State Archive); (c) recent photo (nomination report photo)”
Advocates for preservation of the city’s historic homes and properties have dropped their appeal over a Seattle Hearing Examiner decision this year that could allow a property owner to demolish a landmarked house on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row to develop a set of eleven townhomes on the 14th Ave E parcel just south of Volunteer Park.
Historic Seattle filed for the “voluntary dismissal” in the case last week.
The organization originally filed the appeal in January after the city’s Landmarks Preservation Board approved a “controls and incentives agreement” for the landmarked Caroline Horton House that imposed no restrictions on the 120-year-old house after the house’s owners were able to show just how valuable the property could be if developed. Continue reading
(Image: Shafer Baillie Mansion)
(Image: Shafer Baillie Mansion)
By Matt Dowell
Up on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row, a half-century old B&B in the 1910s-era Shafer Baillie Mansion has been put to rest.
Ana Lena Melka and Mark Mayhle, who’ve owned and operated the business for the last two decades, decided last year that they were ready to retire.
“I was just tired,” Melka told CHS. “We’ve been open year round for twenty years except when we took two weeks off to refinish all the wood floors and do all the carpets.”
They put the house at 14th and Aloha just down from Volunteer Park up for sale and stopped taking bookings after New Year’s Eve. A buyer materialized and the sale — for somewhere near its $5 million asking price — is pending. Continue reading
The Burwell House
The Seattle Landmarks Board will consider the designation of a house on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row for official protection of its historic elements Wednesday.
The April 16th session follows the successful nomination of the Burwell House this winter. “It is challenging to find Arts and Crafts architecture in Seattle comparable” to the 1904-built 14th Ave E house, the nomination report on the property noted.
Situated on the southern end of the west side of Millionaire’s Row, the 6,570-square-foot house is within a few blocks of 11 properties designated for landmarks protections and the street as a whole won its listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
In addition to placing the old houses under a review process for any significant architectural changes to their protected elements, the programs also make the properties eligible for grants-in-aid and the historic rehabilitation tax credit—which allows owners and some lessees to take a 20% income tax credit on rehabilitation costs. Continue reading
Built for a Seattle Hardware Company founder, the Burwell House comes with a lot of hardware
A neighborhood of landmarks is poised to add another.
The Burwell House of Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row is slated to be considered for protection of its historic features in a hearing scheduled for March.
Champions of historic preservation in Seattle might be falling over themselves to see the 1904-built 14th Ave E house designated. “It is challenging to find Arts and Crafts architecture in Seattle comparable to the Burwell House,” the report on the property compiled for the nomination hearing writes. Continue reading
It never existed at 14th and E Valley, that’s for sure (Image: CHS)
Like most good ghost tales, the legend of the Winchester House of Capitol Hill is mostly a mixture of confusion, fear and a good story. Continue reading
The Eckstein Estate of Millionaire’s Row
By Elizabeth Turnbull
It was a quiet victory. Last year, Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row neighborhood, which spans from 14th Ave E to Volunteer Park, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places — a designation that has brought a greater sense of importance to the street.
It was also part of an increasingly questioned movement to win protections and historic designations for certain areas and blocks of Seattle, raising questions about equity in a city struggling with rising costs and increased displacement. Continue reading
(Image: Wikimedia)
Caroline Horton
The grand American Foursquare on 14th Ave E near E Roy, thanks to the clearcutting of Capitol Hill, once had an even grander view. It has waited 116 years to be considered for Seattle landmark protections. Now remembered as the Caroline E. Horton House, one of the remaining unprotected chunks of Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row will finally come before the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board later this month. (UPDATE: Corrected the location mistake. Sorry for the error — that’s what I get from reporting from memory and not looking at a map!)
The old home’s nomination from its most recent owners comes as the Millionaire’s Row neighborhood stretching along 14th Ave E from Volunteer Park won federal recognition — and the protections and tax implications it entails — on the National Register of Historic Places last year.
While many of the now multimillion dollar homes along the street have won landmark status for their immaculate condition as examples of classic Seattle turn of the century architecture, 627 14th Ave E’s story is about the woman who had it built. Continue reading
The view from the Shafer Baillie Mansion
One of the more needlessly dangerous crossings on Capitol Hill is being repaired this week, helping to connect Volunteer Park to its neighbors to the south.
Thanks to the folks at the Shafer Baillie Mansion bed and breakfast for sending over a note and the picture updating on the work Thursday to install new stop signs and crosswalks at the intersection of 14th and Aloha. Continue reading
