| Historic Name: |
|
Common Name: |
|
| Style: |
Arts & Crafts - Craftsman |
Neighborhood: |
Crown Hill/Ballard |
| Built By: |
|
Year Built: |
1910 |
| |
| Significance |
|
|
Residential Ballard is generally described as extending from the 8th Avenue NW to the east and the bluff to the west, and from NW 85th Street on the north to NW 65th Street to the south. The area primarily contains single family houses, but also includes a collection of mutli-family dwellings, commercial buildings, schools, churches, and other buildings. Most of the historic buildings in Ballard are modest cottages and builder's houses, and were not architect-designed. Building styles include, but are not limited to, Victorian (primarily Queen Anne), vernacular, Craftsman, American Foursquare, Colonial Revival (including variations), Tudor Revival, Minimal Traditional, and Ranch. The historic building fabric of Ballard is threatened by a rapid pace of development.
The City of Ballard was incorporated in 1890. It was the first community to incorporate after Washington achieved statehood in 1889. Although population increased rapidly, north Ballard was still relatively rural. In 1907, primarily due to lack of adequate water for its population of 15,000, Ballard citizens voted to be annexed to Seattle to ensure a good water supply for the area.
After annexation Ballard’s street names were changed to conform to Seattle’s: Ship Street turned into 65th Street, Main Street became 15th Avenue. During the Great Depression and World War II, construction in Ballard nearly ground to a halt, with the exception of some houses built by Earl F. Mench. However, following World War II, fueled by the G.I. bill and the rise of the automobile, Ballard boomed again, and new housing followed. In recent years, the demand for new housing has spurred a tremendous amount of change in Ballard, with old, modest houses being replaced by large box houses and multi-family units. These changes threaten to alter the character and feeling of this historic neighborhood.
References
Ballard Historical Society Classic Home Tour guides.
Crowley, Walt. Seattle Neighborhoods: Ballard--Thumbnail History. HistoryLink File # 983, accessed 6/1/16.
King County Tax Assessor Records, 1937-2014.
McAlester, Virginia Savage.
A Field Guide to American Houses (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Alfred A> Knopf Press, 2013.
Oschsner, Jeffrey Karl
Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects. Seattle, WA: University of
Washington Press, 1994.
Passport to Ballard: The Centennial Story. Seattle, WA: Ballard News Tribune, 1988.
Historical Summary
The house at 7302 is a simple Craftsman style house built in 1910, somewhat unusual in its combination
of gable and hipped roof construction. It served as the family home for John Peter and Ella Stoeffler for
over 40 years.
In 1910 O.J. Johan applied for a side sewer permit as owner of the property. Listed as the side sewer
contractor is P. Rodal; the same Peter Rodal associated with the house at 3036 NW 66th Street and
identified as #077 in this Ballard Historical Society mapping project. No further information was found
on O.J. Johan.
The next owners of record are John Peter and Ella Stoeffler. John was born in Iowa in 1874; of German
and American parents. The Iowa state census of 1885 lists him as living in Jefferson, Iowa with his
BALLARD HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2016
Mapping Historic Ballard: Shingletown to Tomorrow
parents, six siblings, and a housekeeper. Ella was born in 1872, one of five children born to American
and Swiss parents. She and John met and married in Iowa in 1892 and gave birth to two daughters; Olive
Violet in 1894, and Corean Corrine in 1897; and two sons, Norman in 1899, and Walter, in 1903.
Sometime after 1903, the family moved to Seattle and lived in various houses in the Ballard area until
purchasing the house at 7302 in 1914. From at least as early as 1907, John was a foreman at the Seattle
Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Company, located on Shilshole Avenue in Ballard, and it appears he
continued working there until his death in 1920. In 1917 Corrinne married and she and her husband,
Milton LeClaire, lived with her parents in their house on 22nd until her untimely death in 1925. Walter
continued to live at home with his mother, working in his younger years as a helper in a candy company,
and later as assistant shipping clerk at the L. Marks & Company.
In 1930 just Ella and her son were living in the house. Their neighbors included people born in Iowa,
Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Canada, and Norway as well as Washington, in
occupations including truck driver for a wholesale tobacco company; cashier-bookkeeper for a biscuit
company; playfield instructor for the City Parks Department; manager at a grocery warehouse;
electrician; auto mechanic; painter; clerk at a hardware store; can maker at a can company; shipping
clerk; salesman for a notions company; laborer; and street car operator. By 1940, Walter was working as
assistant foreman at a lumber mill. Some of the same people lived on the block as in 1930, but others
had arrived who came from New York, Oregon, Montana, California, Denmark, and Sweden, working as
beauty operators, stenographers, candy packer, seaman, and janitor.
Ella died August 23, 1954. During her life she was involved in local organizations including the Northwest
Christian Church; the Occidential Chapter No 28; Order of the Eastern Star; and Corinthian Court No. 15,
Order of Amaranth. Walter married and divorced in the 1920s, then married again sometime after 1940
to Esther (Eriksen) Guyll who lived at the Eriksen family home at 7013 22nd NW—just one block away. It
is unclear whether he and his second wife lived in the Stoeffler family home after their marriage while
Ella was still alive, or after her death, but he is listed in Assessor’s records as the owner in 1958. Walter
died in January 1980 and was survived by Esther and stepsons George and Erwin Guyll. He was active in
the Occidental Lodge No 72 F and A.M.; Ballard Aerie No. 172 FOE, and Lumber Production and
Industrial Workers Union Local 2519.
|
|
| |
| Appearance |
Architecture
The one-story house sits squarely on a 5100 sf corner lot on the northeast corner of the intersection of
NW 73rd Street and 22nd Avenue NW. The lot is simply landscaped with lawn, foundation shrubs, and a
specimen tree in the front yard. While the house itself hip-roofed, there is a gable-roofed porch located
asymmetrically on the front façade. The porch is supported by a three sets of triple-columns that each
spring from large, square bases across the northern two-thirds of the front façade. There are decorative
brackets at the pier columns and the gable roof is supported with knee braces and trimmed with a wide
bargeboard that extends well beyond the roofline. On the portion of the front façade that is not
contained within the front porch is a large double-hung window with two lights; the upper light
comprised of multi-paned, diamond-shaped leaded glass as is often seen in Craftsman bungalows of this
era. A similar window is featured on the south façade just around the corner from this front window.
Windows on the rest of the house are similarly double-hung, but not all with leaded glass upper lights. A
small bay window extends off the south façade but otherwise the house is fully contained within a
rectangular frame about 30’ across by 40’ deep. The house is clad in narrow lap siding; Assessor’s photos
indicate that this original siding was covered over sometime in the 1950s with wide cedar shake siding,
but since then it has been removed and the original siding restored.
|
|
|
