Seattle Historical Sites

Summary for 221 Minor / Parcel ID 2467400050 / Inv #

Historic Name: 219-223 Minor Ave. N / Drotning Dental Laboratory Common Name: Retail Lock Box Style: Modern - International Style Neighborhood: Cascade Built By: Year Built: 1959   Significance In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). This Modernist building, completed in 1959, uses the vocabulary and much of the well-known technology of the International Style and Modernism. It relies on the notion of a box structure apparently floating over free, open space, and achieves dramatic effect by the use of cantilever and minimally expressed supports. The exterior walls are tilt up concrete, with a reinforced concrete floor structure and metal frame curtain wall used on the east and west elevations. The building also uses proportions in an interesting way and long uninterrupted ribbons of material - wood, glass, brick - juxtaposed against each other. The architect for this building is listed as its original owner, architecture firm Carlson Eley Grevstad, but the name of Barney Grevstad shows up on subsequent drawings for a possible remodel, that does not seem to have been done or has not changed the exterior appearance. The building began as an office and “garage” for Carlson Eley Grevstad, and later became the “Drotning Dental Lab” in 1974. It currently houses the offices of the “Retail Lock Box.” Barney Grevstad, was a native Seattleite and graduate of the University of Washington architecture school. His firm worked on the mechanical engineering building at the University of Washington and many projects in Seattle. In addition to being a member of the American Institute of Architects, Barney Grevstad was also a member of the Norwegian Male Chorus. When Grevstad retired in 1972, Carlson Eley Grevstad dissolved. He was 69 years old when he died in 1982.   Appearance This International Style building consists of a second floor structure with a rectangular plan and flat roof, a “box,” which floats over a ground level structure, that is less than a third of the width of the built level above (if one is looking at the main elevation which faces east on Minor Avenue North). The building at ground level, located under the northern portion of the main façade, includes an entrance and entry stair, to the east, as well as a back waiting room, to the west. To the south of the ground level built portion are two thick unenclosed columns, rectangular in plan, which appear to support the rest of the structure. While the ground level elevation is mostly glazed, the main eastern elevation of the “box,” has a long ribbon of metal frame windows that alternate between wider windows and windows of about half the width of these, each with a small top lite, about equivalent in length to one third of the height of the windows. The rest of the eastern façade is clad in long bands of brick and wood, currently painted a sort of gray-blue color. The north and south elevations are blank walls. The back western elevation, apparently meant to greet motorists parking their cars, is similar in composition to the main east façade.

Detail for 221 Minor / Parcel ID 2467400050 / Inv #

Status: Yes - Inventory Classication: Building District Status: INV Cladding(s): Brick, Concrete, Glass - Curtain Wall Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured Roof Type(s): Flat Roof Material(s): Other Building Type: Commercial/Trade - Professional Plan: Rectangular Structural System: Concrete - Poured No. of Stories: two Unit Theme(s): Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Commerce Integrity Changes to Windows: Intact Changes to Plan: Slight Changes to Original Cladding: Intact Major Bibliographic References City of Seattle DCLU Microfilm Records. King County Property Record Card (c. 1938-1972), Washington State Archives. Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, ed. Shaping Seattle Architecture, A Historical Guide to the Architects. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994. “Memorial services set for retired architect, Barney E Grevstad,” Seattle Times, September 5, 1982, C4.

Photo collection for 221 Minor / Parcel ID 2467400050 / Inv #

Photo taken Oct 23, 2003