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Summary for 2203 31st AVE / Parcel ID 2090200065 / Inv #

Historic Name: Common Name:
Style: American Foursquare Neighborhood: Mount Baker
Built By: Year Built: 1907
 
Significance
Built in 1907, this building was purchased by George L. and Bessie W. Meagher in May of 1926. Mr. Meagher worked as the general foreman for the City Light Department. The Meagher’s remained in the building through 1943. By 1938, Samuel Cohen also resided in the building. The garage was torn down in 1951 and a room and two-car garage added in the basement. The kitchen was also remodeled at that time, and stucco was added on the first story building exterior and new siding was added on the second story. Henry E. Hartley lived in the house by 1955 through 1961. Charles J. Saunders bought the building in July of 1964 for $21,950 and remained through 1968. Charles P. Dose and his son, architect Charles C. Dose, platted the Dose Addition in 1906 on ten acres along South Walker Street between Thirth-First Avenue South and Lake Washington. Charles P. Dose was a German immigrant and a real estate businessman and banker originally based in Chicago. In 1871, Mr. Dose and his partners, Fricke Brothers, purchased a 40-acre tract of property in Seattle’s future Mount Baker District on Lake Washington. In 1898, he moved from Chicago to Seattle with his family. Charles C. Dose designed houses in the subdivision. The Dose family lived in one, and then sold it and built another. The Dose’s first house in the plat was a cottage at Thirty-First Avenue South and South Walker Street. The Dose Addition had the same restrictions on non-white ownership as Mount Baker Park. The Dose family, especially Mrs. Charles C. (Phoebe) Dose, was actively involved in the creation of the Mount Baker Park Improvement Club. The Mount Baker neighborhood comprises two north-south tending ridges located southeast of downtown Seattle along Lake Washington. Initial development of the area occurred relatively late, post-1900, following the construction of the Rainier Avenue Electric Street Railway in the 1890s. York Station on Rainier Avenue and the Dose Addition were developed earlier than the Mount Baker Park Addition, platted in 1907 by the Hunter Tract Improvement Company. The Mount Baker Park Addition represents the core of the neighborhood and is its primary character-defining feature. Mount Baker Park is one of Seattle’s earliest planned residential communities that successfully integrated the natural environment and a relatively exclusive residential neighborhood in its layout of lots, streets, boulevards, and parks. The houses, primarily built between 1905 and 1929, reflect a variety of eclectic and Northwest-based architectural styles, and include designs by many prominent local architects. Other important influences were the streetcar connection with downtown Seattle, the integration of local parks and boulevards into the Olmsted system, the construction of Franklin High School in 1912, and the building of the Mount Baker tunnel and Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge to Mercer Island in 1940. Today this middle-to-upper income neighborhood remains predominantly residential, is home to an ethnically diverse population, and retains much of its planned character.
 
Appearance

Detail for 2203 31st AVE / Parcel ID 2090200065 / Inv #

Status: Yes - Hold
Classication: Building District Status:
Cladding(s): Stucco, Wood - Clapboard Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured
Roof Type(s): Hip Roof Material(s): Asphalt/Composition
Building Type: Domestic - Single Family Plan: Square
Structural System: Balloon Frame/Platform Frame No. of Stories: two
Unit Theme(s):
Integrity
Changes to Windows: Slight
Changes to Original Cladding: Intact
Changes to Plan: Intact
Major Bibliographic References
City of Seattle DCLU Microfilm Records.
King County Property Record Card (c. 1938-1972), Washington State Archives.
Polk's Seattle Directories, 1890-1996.
City of Seattle. Survey of City-Owned Historic Resources. Prepared by Cathy Wickwire, Seattle, 2001. Forms for Ravenna Park structures.
Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority. "Mount Baker: An Inventory of Buildings and Urban Design Resources."
Mount Baker Community Club. Flowers We All Love Best in Mount Baker Park, (reprint of 1915 ed.)
Tobin, Caroline. (2004) "Mount Baker Historic Context Statement."
De Freece, Helen N, “Reminiscences of Early Years in Mount Baker Park,” Seattle Times, August 16, 1959.
Dose, C.P. “Autobiography of C.P. Dose.” Seattle: unpublished paper, September 1924.

Photo collection for 2203 31st AVE / Parcel ID 2090200065 / Inv #


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