| Historic Name: |
Keeler, Henry E., House |
Common Name: |
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| Style: |
American Foursquare |
Neighborhood: |
Capitol Hill |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1905 |
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| Significance |
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In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). |
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This is an excellent and relatively ornate example of a Foursquare, with distinctive circle- and lattice- motif windows. This is one of several similar houses in this vicinity and may have been built from a plan book. In 1960 the house was re-clad, but it has since been restored to its original appearance. A two-car garage was added at the northwest corner, but is not noticeable from the front. The original owner is not known, but it was purchased in 1940 by Henry E. Keeler. The house was originally single family, but has been used as both a duplex and a triplex.
This part of Capitol Hill has the city’s greatest concentration of American Foursquare houses—often called the Classic Box or Seattle Box, because of its local popularity. They were built primarily between 1905 and 1910. Most of these houses were not designed by an architect, but were built by local builders from patterns purchased from magazines. Most have a wide front porch with heavy posts or columns and a hip roof with dormers. There are typically eight main rooms on two floors--living room, hall, dining room and kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms and bath upstairs. Two reasons for their popularity were that they provided a large amount of space for reasonable cost, and that they could be personalized depending on an owners taste and budget. This neighborhood has numerous variations, from simple unornamented versions to elaborately detailed ones with multiple columns, beveled leaded glass windows and exotic accent windows.
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| Appearance |
| This Foursquare has a shallow hip roof and front dormer, both with deep bracketed eaves. Its most distinctive features are the lattice patterned second-story windows, including two arched accent windows. Similar widnows are on the side elevations on the the first floor. The primary windows on the first floor, in front and at the entry, have leaded glass with a circle motif. Somewhat unusual is the corbelled chimney, more typical of the Tudor style. Cladding is clapboard on the first story and stucco above, with belt courses below the windows on each level, plus a water table. The southeast corner projects slightly and is topped with a hipped roof. The northern two-thirds of the front has a projecting porch with a flat (or nearly so) roof supported by two square wood piers. The entry door and sidelights have leaded glass. There is a two car basement garage at the side rear. |
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