(click to enlarge photos)

As many alert readers of this periodical will know, Craftsman-style homes are wonderfully commonplace in Seattle. During the early 20th century in the many working and middle-class neighborhoods burgeoning in this boomtown, they sprouted by the hundreds. (I live in one built in Wallingford 101 years ago, and there are five more on the block.) While many Seattle Craftsmen have been surrendered to one miracle siding or another and/or fit with vinyl windows, many still hold to their intended angles, stained glass and shingles. A few, like this one at 1910 47th Ave. S.W., have been blessed with tender care.

This West Seattle Craftsman is also quite unique for the service and lessons that it is about to give. On Sunday afternoon, Aug. 18, this home two lots south of Holgate Street will celebrate its centennial with a fundraiser for one of our community’s happiest nonprofits: the Southwest Seattle Historical Society. The hosts are our penultimate (former) mayor, Greg Nickels, and his wife, Sharon. The couple has lived in this Craftsman since 1986 and added significantly to its zestful story with what Greg attests were hundreds of campaign events, drawing political luminaries such as Al Gore and countless volunteers to gatherings that included all-night mailing parties and more than 20 meetings of their “First Barbecue of the Season,” a fundraising feast each February.

The artful builder of the historical society’s benefit is Clay Eals, its executive director. The event’s name is most promising: “If These Walls Could Talk: The Centennial of Hizzoner’s Home.” With the help of Carolyn Smith, Bethany Green and Brad Chrisman, other members of the event committee, the story of this Craftsman will be interpreted with posted illustrated panels and tours led by Greg and Sharon.

Like many Craftsmen, this one is considerably larger than it appears from the street. The benefit – and there is, of course, a price for admission – is also bigger. For details, call the historical society’s Log House Museum at (206) 938-5293 or consult its website at loghousemuseum.info.

WEB EXTRAS

As you know, Paul, our friend Clay Eals has kindly provided us with some snapshots of the Nickels house, revealing more of its history.

 

Anything to add, Paul?

May we leave it with the bare-kneed Nickles, above – and a few Democratic classics?  It is swell to get closer to the still penultimate mayor, and appropriate too during this year’s mayoral go-around, but we will not leave it at that. Jean we carry on with more of Ron Edge’s good works, beginning with another button/link to our 1912 Baist Real Estate Map, this time, for the part of it that covers the Nickel’s neighborhood.  And from the ’12 map we go one to three aerial surveys – the parts of them that also cover Duwamish Head.

Long long ago in the mid 1970s I came upon an aerial survey of Seattle that is rare indeed, from 1929.  It is almost certainly the earliest.  I stumbled upon it in the public works archive – or records morgue – of the city’s engineering dept in the old city hall.  I saw it briefly.  Then it went lost for more than a quarter century, until found again last year.  Ron has scanned the hundreds of photographs that comprise the several passes over Seattle made by the aerial photographer and is now undertaking – and sizable it is! – to merge them.  For this feature he has stitched the Duwamish Head aerials not only for 1929 but also for 1936 and 1946.  On the 1929 “button” below (which leads you to the pdf) Ron has also marked with a red circle the position of the Nickles home long before the future mayor  took residence in West Seattle or on this planet.

We all hope that you the dear reader will enjoy making the comparisons between them, and look forward to the day that Ron Edge can merge them all and share them too – after he has painted his house.

 

1912

1929

1936

1946