| Historic Name: |
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Common Name: |
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| Style: |
Arts & Crafts - Craftsman, Colonial - Dutch Colonial, Queen Anne - Shingle |
Neighborhood: |
Wallingford |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1913 |
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| Significance |
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In the opinion of the survey, this property appears to meet the criteria of the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. |
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This house was built in 1912-13. It was designed and erected by the Long Building Company, with offices at the New York Block (613 New York Building according to city directories), for property owner S. C. Lancaster, whose address is listed as 5007 Brooklyn on the building permit. The design appears to have anticipated the popularity of gambrel roofed, neo-colonial houses nearly a decade later, in the years after the First World War, but seems to have been developed from Queen Ann or Arts & Crafts precedents. The Long Building Company’s directory ad described the firm as “Builders and Designers of Up-to-date Houses and Bungalows” with whom it was possible to have “Homes Financed and Built to Order from Your Own Plans.”
The current building appears to have replaced an earlier structure at the site. A permit was issued for an addition to the earlier structure in 1903; however, no other record of this building has been located and its date of construction is therefore unknown.
In 1924, Nels Mortinson designed and built a two-car terrace garage on the property for owner Dr. H. H. Cranfield, who appears to have acquired the property the previous year. This structure appears to have been substantially altered quite recently.
The Assessor’s record suggests that the property was sold to Whitney Morris in 1948 and then later purchased by the Paulette family, who owned the house until the current owners acquired it in 1999.
One and two story additions were made to the north and east sides of the house between 1999 and 2002, and the interior of the house was altered as well, according to the building permit issued for the work. Chuck Johnston of the Johnston Architects prepared the design of the remodel for the current owners, Sonja Gustafson and Steve Trautman.
The house remains significant despite the extensive alterations because the two primary street elevations, and especially the west side entry façade, have been maintained in (or renovated to) a condition fairly close to their original appearance and because both elevations exhibit a level of attention to detail and skillful surface manipulation in their original design that is rare among houses of this age in the Wallingford community. The careful architectural development of the cladding is suggestive of the approach taken by architects of the Shingle style. However, the design of the building also combines an especially rich interpretation of Dutch colonial elements, especially in the shape and articulation of the roof and the use of classical features such as the massive unfluted columns at the entry porch and the semicircular windows and vents in the gables. These elements are blended with bungalow typology (as suggested by the corner placement of the entry porch) and detailing (such as the extended roof purlins and banded windows).
It is curious that no notice of this structure was taken by Nyberg and Steinbrueck in "Wallingford: An Inventory of Buildings and Urban Design Resources."
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| Appearance |
| This is a 1-1/2 story, shingle-clad frame residence on a concrete foundation over a full basement. The skillfully articulated gambrel roof establishes the initial expectation that this house is developed from Dutch colonial models; however, there are many elements of the design that are not employed in typical neo-colonial manner and others that seem derived from Queen Anne or craftsman antecedents. The choice of stout, unfluted Doric columns at the entry to support a shingle-clad entablature seems somewhat out of character for a neo-colonial structure. The semi-circular windows and vents appear to be lonely classical elements in an otherwise bungaloid façade. The choice of shingle siding and the manipulation of the siding material to form large subtly curved panels that project from the wall to function as drip surfaces at the heads of the upper story windows are suggestive of Queen Anne sensibilities. The entry porch is placed at the southwest corner of the structure rather than at the center of the entry façade as would be more typical of neo-colonial design, and the porch is completely contained within the volume of the main house, an arrangement more typical of Queen Anne or craftsman style work. The wide bargeboards supported by decorative roof purlin extensions, the unenclosed soffits and exposed rafter tails, the banded windows and the configuration of muntins in individual window units are all more typical of arts & crafts design.
The west façade opens to Burke Avenue N. and is the entry elevation of the side gabled structure. A notch containing the entry porch is located at the southwest corner of the building, leaving a void in the façade at the south half of the west elevation. The entry stair rises to the notch near the north end of its western edge. Two columns stand at the north end of the porch opening. Two more stand at the south end, although a third column at that location forms an equilateral “L” with the other two to support the outside corner of the structure above. The entry door is at the north wall of the porch so that axis of the entry opening is at a right angle to that of the entry stair. The back (east) wall of the porch features two sets of windows, a group of four to the south and a group of two to the north. Each of the windows is a single sash unit with two square lights over a very tall and much larger rectangular light. The present window assemblies are similar but not identical to the original assemblies. The latter featured a transom unit divided into two lights over a tall narrow undivided window of equal width. Heavy mullions separated the transom units from the lower windows and the transoms and lower windows from adjacent units.
A large gambrel roofed dormer is centered over the entry porch at the west elevation. Three double hung windows are ganged together and centered in the face of the dormer. The central unit is wider and divided in a 6:1 pattern. The flanking units are narrower and configured in a 4:1 pattern. A semi-circular vent is centered in the upper part of the gable.
A group of four windows is centered in the west façade of the house to the north of the porch. This assembly appears to have replaced the original group of windows at this location, and like the units they replaced they match the group of four windows at the porch. The two outside units are casements; the interior units appear to be fixed. A shed-roofed dormer in the lower, steeper portion of the gambrel roof above is centered over this window group.
At the north elevation, a series of mostly double-hung windows varying in size are sprinkled pragmatically in a gentle arc beginning at the lower west end of the façade and extending to the upper east end of the original structure over what was initially a small, hip-roofed, side entry porch enclosure more-or-less centered in the main level of the north elevation. Two of the original windows appear to have been removed and the remaining units have been replaced and their locations adjusted in a manner that gives them a more “intentional” appearance. One of the larger remaining windows is situated between levels and appears to illuminate an interior stair landing at the north side of the house. A semi-circular vent is centered in the gable above. The side porch enclosure has been greatly expanded into a substantial hip roofed addition that appears to wrap around the northeast corner of the original structure. A new Tuscan column supports the northwest corner of the expanded porch that serves this side entry.
The south elevation is the other main façade of the structure. It looms over a two-car terrace garage in the south yard that is entered over the sidewalk from N. 43rd Street. The garage parapet appears to serve double duty as a terrace deck railing. It is solid and shingle-clad except at the outside corners where its upper portion becomes an open wood railing. The parapet’s skirt flares where it meets the top of the concrete garage enclosure built into the bank of the side yard below.
The upper level south elevation of the house itself is symmetrically organized. A group of three double hung units -- resembling the group in the west-facing gambrel roofed dormer -- is centered in the imposing south-facing, gambrel style side gable. Solitary double-hung units, each configured in a 6:1 pattern, are located a few feet to either side of the central group. A semi-circular attic window is centered in the gable above. At the main level, the porch notch cuts into the west end of the façade. Toward the east end of the façade, a hip roofed bay projects to the south. Three windows with lights organized in a 3 x 2 pattern are ganged together in the bay’s south wall. Between the porch notch and the bay is an opening group consisting of three windows similar to those at the front porch ganged together with a glazed door. This assembly appears to have replaced the original four-window group at this location.
A shed-like extension of the gambrel at the east (back) side of the house appears to shelter a back porch addition at the southeast corner of the structure. The south façade is partially obscured by a group of shingle-clad walls and railings that appear to be recent additions to the south yard. The back of the house appears to have been substantially modified, and a large new wing projects some distance to the east from the original east elevation. New concrete retaining walls have been added at the perimeter of the rear yard as well.
As suggested above, the house has been significantly altered. In 1999- 2002, the size of the building was greatly increased by one and two story additions at he back (east side) of the house and by a large one-story expansion along the north elevation of the original building. The interior of the existing house was altered when the house was expanded, according to the building permit. The upper portion of the north elevation, the west façade facing Burke Avenue N., and the south elevation of the original structure facing N. 43rd Street were all renovated but appear much as they did when the building was first constructed. In fact, photographs attached to the King County Property Record Card for this property suggest that these facades were returned to their original subtlety of detail after having been simplified to some degree in the middle years of the building’s life. As a result, when viewed from the southwest, the house itself now looks much as it did when it was first built and is able to convey the skill of its original designer as well as that of its most recent renovators.
All of the windows appear to have been replaced in kind, but – as noted above -- not necessarily in the precise configuration originally employed. All now feature insulated glass. The terrace garage appears to have been significantly modified; new garage doors, of a design much more sympathetic to the character of the house than were the doors in place in 1937, have been installed. In addition the garage parapet/deck rail has been modified and new stone retaining walls are visible at the west and south boundaries of the site. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Inventory |
| Classication: |
Building |
District Status: |
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| Cladding(s): |
Brick, Shingle, Wood |
Foundation(s): |
Concrete - Poured |
| Roof Type(s): |
Gambrel, Hip, Shed |
Roof Material(s): |
Asphalt/Composition-Shingle |
| Building Type: |
Domestic - Single Family |
Plan: |
Irregular |
| Structural System: |
Balloon Frame/Platform Frame |
No. of Stories: |
one & ½ |
| Unit Theme(s): |
Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Community Planning/Development |
| Integrity |
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Changes to Windows: |
Moderate |
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Changes to Plan: |
Moderate |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
Slight |
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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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