| Historic Name: |
Franca Villa Apartments |
Common Name: |
Franca Villa Apartments |
| Style: |
Spanish - Mediterranean |
Neighborhood: |
Queen Anne |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1930 |
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| Significance |
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In the opinion of the survey, this property appears to meet the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places. |
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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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In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). |
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This building was designed by architect William Whiteley for owner Victor Sandberg in 1929. Whiteley designed many of the buildings developed by Frederick Anhalt, one of the most important Seattle apartment developers during the 1920s. The Mediterranean style seen here is less common than the Norman-Tudor styles, although several similar apartment buildings are found on Queen Anne. This one differs in having second-story balconies. The central courtyard is also unusually large, perhaps because of the out-of-the way location at the edge of Queen Anne. It has thirteen units, averaging five rooms and nearly 1100 square feet. It is also perhaps the only Anhalt buildings oriented toward the view; he typically created views with courtyard plantings rather than rely on outside views.
Frederick Anhalt was Seattle’s best-known apartment developers, bringing a distinctive sense of style and promoting high-quality apartments as an alternative to single-family homes. His buildings are the best known of the city’s numerous pre-war apartment buildings, and set the standard for such projects. Anhalt combined the development, design, construction, landscaping, marketing and management functions in one firm. Anhalt moved to Seattle about 1924 after working in various trades in the Midwest, and in 1925 formed the Western Building & Leasing Company with partner Jerome B. Hardcastle, Jr. The company quickly began to centralize design and construction within the firm, and in 1928 Anhalt bought Hardcastle’s interest. The firm built bungalow courts, apartment courts and commercial buildings on Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, West Seattle, Beacon Hill and Ballard, using English Tudor or Mediterranean Revival styles. In late 1928, the firm designed and constructed apartment buildings for The Borchert Company. The following year the firm (now known as the Anhalt Company) built five larger-scale luxury apartment buildings on Capitol Hill, based on Medieval English and Norman French prototypes. Although the apartment business failed during the Depression, Anhalt continued to build single-family homes until 1942, when he turned to his nursery business.
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| Appearance |
| This large U-shaped apartment building faces west at the edge of Queen Anne hill, with its back to Olympic Way West. It has thirteen units, primarily two-story townhouses. The Mediterranean Revival building is clad with beige stucco, with a red clay tile gabled roof. The large courtyard is landscaped with trees and shrubs. The two-story east wing has an arcade on the first floor and individual terraces on the second floor, with wide arched openings and wrought iron railings; a gabled parapet rises in the center. The north and south wings are one story in the front, with shed roofs, with two-story gabled sections in the rear. Each pair of entries has a small arched porch. Most windows are eight-light leaded casements, with picture windows in the living rooms. Garages, added in 1930, are along the outside, on the south elevation. |
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