| Historic Name: |
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Common Name: |
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| Style: |
Arts & Crafts - Prairie Style |
Neighborhood: |
Wallingford |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1917 |
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| Significance |
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This house was erected 1917 by owner James B. Barber, a building contractor who listed his address as 3934 Eastern on the permit application. The designer of the structure is not indicated on the permit
A one-car garage is located in the basement of the building’s south wing and appears to have been added when the wing was erected for owner Richard J. Curry, a tailor, in 1921. The designer of the addition is listed as William J. Jones, a registered architect with offices at 422 New York Building at the time of the addition’s construction. The agent who filed the permit application was James B. Barber, a fact that suggests that Barber built the original house as a speculative development project.
The property appears to have been acquired by Jay H. Taylor in the mid 1930s and by Jeffrey L. Turner in 1971.
This structure is significant as an intact, well-maintained and fine example of prairie style residential architecture built at the end of Seattle first north end building boom
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| Appearance |
| This is a two story, stucco and shingle clad frame residence on a concrete foundation over a full basement.
This prairie style house features low slope hipped roofs with broad overhangs and enclosed soffits. Despite being a two-story structure, the house has a strong horizontal feel. The continuous horizontal line established by the eaves sets the tone and the detailing of the siding and the banding of the windows emphasizes the prairie style character of the structure.
The fully glazed entry door is flanked by sidelights and centered in the back wall of the hip roofed entry porch. Shingle clad piers supporting the outside corners of the porch cover rest on wood capped, shingle clad porch railings. The porch rail caps are extended horizontally around the house to connect the sills of he main floor windows, reemphasizing the horizontal lines of the structure and dividing the simple shingle pattern of the skirting from the more developed pattern of shingles at the body of the house where the exposure of the shingles alternates from course to course. A similar horizontal trim element provides a stool on which the sills of the upper story windows rest and separates the stucco siding at the top of the walls from the shingles that clad the body of the house below.
Almost all of the windows lighting the upper floor are identically sized casements units organized singly or in pairs. Almost all feature a muntin pattern typically associated with craftsman bungalows: at each window, a vertical muntin is situated a few inches from each side of the sash, and a horizontal muntin is situated an equal distance from the top and from the bottom of the sash, forming a border of alternating squares and rectangles around a large central light. In contrast, the double-hung windows at the main level of the house each feature divided lights in a 2 x 4 pattern in the upper sash over a larger undivided lower sash.
At the south elevation, two of the latter units flank the chimney at the main level near the west end of the south wall. A group of three similar windows is located to the east. At the upper level, a single casement unit is located west of the chimney; a group of three, then a single, then a group of two casements extend to the east.
A wing extends to the south and east from the back quarter of the south elevation. A deck wraps around this wing at the main floor level. Two French doors, each divided in a 5 x 3 pattern of rectangular lights, open to the deck from the middle of the wing’s west elevation. A driveway slopes down to the basement garage door, located below the deck at the west side of the wing nearly on axis with the French doors above.
At the north wall, the casement units at the upper level are more sparsely distributed. They are joined by a much smaller unit between casement groups in the eastern half of the façade. At the main level, three small atypical windows are distributed across the façade. A door at the half level between the main floor and the basement opens to the side yard west of the center of the elevation.
The east (rear) elevation cannot be viewed from the street. Also, the north side of the addition mentioned above cannot be seen from the street
The addition of the southeast wing in 1921 must be regarded as a major alteration to the structure; however, because this work was completed just four years after the house was built in 1917, it is experienced as an original component of the design. No other significant modifications are apparent. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Inventory |
| Classication: |
Building |
District Status: |
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| Cladding(s): |
Shingle, Stucco, Wood |
Foundation(s): |
Concrete - Poured |
| Roof Type(s): |
Hip |
Roof Material(s): |
Asphalt/Composition-Shingle |
| Building Type: |
Domestic - Single Family |
Plan: |
Irregular |
| Structural System: |
Balloon Frame/Platform Frame |
No. of Stories: |
two |
| Unit Theme(s): |
Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Community Planning/Development |
| Integrity |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
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Changes to Plan: |
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Changes to Windows: |
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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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