| Historic Name: |
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Common Name: |
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| Style: |
Arts & Crafts - Craftsman, Arts & Crafts - Swiss Chalet |
Neighborhood: |
Wallingford |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1909 |
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| Significance |
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This house was erected in 1909 according to the King County Property Record Card completed in 1937 and the King County Assessor Property Characteristics Report accessed in 2004; however, the original building permit for this structure has not yet been located and, for this reason, the date of construction must be regarded as approximate. The name of the architect and builder are unknown. The structure offers less than 1,000 square feet of living space, a fact that may account for the fact that W. A Stratton, a laborer, was able to acquire the property in 1924.
There appears to be a garage at the site but it is not known when it was added.
This structure is significant as an intact and fairly well maintained craftsman bungalow (a slight bow in the edge of the roof at the south elevation has been evident since at least 1957). The false half-timbering in the front gable (particularly the curvilinear elements) and the clipped gable itself give the building the character of a miniature chalet, a bungalow type not well represented in the Wallingford neighborhood.
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| Appearance |
| This is a very small one-story frame residence with combed shingle cladding at the body of the house and stucco with false half timbering in the gables. It is built on a concrete foundation over a full basement. The low slope of the roof, the wide bargeboards supported by a combination of triangular timber knee braces and decorative “purlin” extensions, the exposed undersides of the overhangs, the pattern of muntins in the upper sash of each of the front (west) facing windows, and the detailing of the porch are all typical of craftsman bungalow design.
The porch is set into a notch at the southwest corner of the structure. At the outside corner of the porch, a built-up wood pier stands atop a solid, shingle-clad porch rail. A low gabled porch roof, floating below the main roof of the structure, extends toward the street from the west face of the house. Its wide bargeboard is supported by two knee braces, one attached to the pier and the other to the front of the house.
A wide double-hung window, flanked by two narrower double-hung units, is situated near the north end of the west elevation. The muntins in the small upper sash of each unit form a border of small, square and rectangular panes around a larger central light. The much larger lower sash of each unit is undivided. The head casing extends across the front of the house to form a horizontal trim band separating the stucco and false half-timbering of the gable from the siding at the body of the house below. A three-leaf window is centered in the gable and coordinated with the half-timbering. A single vertical muntin divides each sash in half; three horizontal muntins divide each half into four lights, two large lights stacked one atop the other in the middle two-thirds of the window and a smaller light at the top and at the bottom. The half timbering is also coordinated with the decorative “purlins” supporting the front overhang and features curvilinear elements that give the structure the look of a northern European country farm house.
In the early years of the building’s life, the sills of the front windows were extended around the house to form a feature strip connecting the sills of several of the windows with the cap of the porch rail. At the south elevation, for example, the sills of the tall but otherwise prosaic double-hung units at either end of the façade were continuous with this feature strip; the sill of the smaller unit in the middle of the façade was not. At the north elevation, a shed-roofed bay projects into the side yard from the middle of the façade. It features a window assembly similar in size and configuration to that at the west (street) elevation. The bay does not extend down to floor level. Instead, a horizontal trim board forms a base for the bay at a little below hip height. A cap piece associated with this trim element also functions as part of the window sill and was almost certainly associated with the now missing porch rail extension and feature strip. A double-hung window is located in the north wall to the east of the bay and paired casements similar to but larger than those in the front gable are situated in near the west (front) end of the façade.
The feature strip originally separated narrow clapboards in the upper half of the wall from wider clapboards below. The feature strip and clapboard siding disappeared in the years between 1937 and 1957, to be replaced by combed shingles (striated shakes).
No other significant modifications are apparent. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Inventory |
| Classication: |
Building |
District Status: |
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| Cladding(s): |
Shingle - Combed, Stucco, Wood |
Foundation(s): |
Concrete - Poured |
| Roof Type(s): |
Gable, Gable - Clipped |
Roof Material(s): |
Asphalt/Composition-Shingle |
| Building Type: |
Domestic - Single Family |
Plan: |
Rectangular |
| Structural System: |
Balloon Frame/Platform Frame |
No. of Stories: |
one |
| Unit Theme(s): |
Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Community Planning/Development |
| Integrity |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
Extensive |
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Changes to Plan: |
Intact |
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Changes to Windows: |
Intact |
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| Major Bibliographic References |
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City of Seattle DCLU Microfilm Records.
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King County Property Record Card (c. 1938-1972), Washington State Archives.
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Polk's Seattle Directories, 1890-1996.
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