Seattle Now & Then: House on Walnut Avenue, 1942

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

THEN: The Walnut Avenue house stands in 1942. Built in 1925, it was the Slate home until 1956, the Rounds home until 1985 and the Bigelow home until this spring. Clay Eals’ grandfather, Joseph Slate, maintained a vegetable garden in the grassy area at left, across Lander Street from Hiawatha Park. In 1966, the plot was split off, and a smaller house arose there the following year. (Eals family collection)
NOW: Bill and Deb Bigelow stand before the Walnut house they owned from 1985 through this spring. Retired, they are moving south to Portland to live closer to their son and daughter-in-law. (Clay Eals)

Published in The Seattle Times online on May 19, 2022
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 22, 2022

A lovingly preserved house can help us find our way home
By Clay Eals

Can we go back home again? An oft-quoted aphorism says we can’t. But we all yearn to click our figurative ruby slippers.

THEN: Joseph and Florence Slate, first owners of the Walnut house, stand on its snowy back steps in January 1943. They sold the house in 1956 for $15,750 to Robert and Lois Rounds, who sold it in 1985 for $110,000 to Bill and Deb Bigelow. Its assessed value in 1938 was just $1,500. (Eals family collection)

In March, I learned that the home my grandparents had built 97 years ago on Walnut Avenue in West Seattle was up for sale. At its open house, I languished for two hours.

I imagined my young mom and her three older sisters running up and down its stairs and singing by an upright Ludwig piano in the first-floor sunroom. I pictured their pranks, one mischievously flushing a toilet while another talked with a boy on the nearby phone. I envisioned my parents’ wedding in front of the golden-brown tiled living-room fireplace, where in 2000 I posed them for a matching “Now” photo on their 50th anniversary.

Preschool-age recollections also surfaced as I sat on front-porch benches that opened into ostensibly secret storage pods. And I lingered in the remodeled kitchen where, in its former breakfast nook, I learned to sip from a straw.

In one sense, this house isn’t distinctive. Just a two-story, four-bedroom prairie Craftsman.

Yet its context, a stone’s throw from Seattle’s first indoor-outdoor community center at Hiawatha Park, has, for nearly a century, conveyed unspoiled neighborhood warmth. Seemingly everything one could want — schools, stores, even a library, ravine, wading pool and movie theater — was mere steps away.

Mainly, however, I marvel at a dwelling that has been owned by only three families, each one stewarding it with loving care.

Alisa and Brandon Allgood. (Courtesy Alisa and Brandon Allgood)

The soon-to-be fourth family, Brandon and Alisa Allgood, hail from California’s Silicon Valley. Brandon, 47, is an artificial-intelligence executive, and his wife, Alisa, 53, is an architectural and interior designer.

Because Brandon grew up in Marysville and on Capitol Hill and has family near Arlington and Darrington, the two have long eyed a move to Seattle. They got serious in February, gravitating to the Walnut house because of its streetside stature, open floor plan, plentiful light, proximity to Alki Beach and what today is called walkability. “We didn’t want run of the mill,” Brandon says. “We like aesthetics and uniqueness.”

The pair anticipates electrical and plumbing upgrades but will retain the house’s integrity. “We realize,” Alisa says, “we have a responsibility to keep it up.”

In Seattle’s dizzying real-estate spiral, preservation comes with a price — in this case, a purchase in excess of $1.4 million. As the cliché goes, for many the so-called American Dream remains just that: a dream.

But I also know that my early time at the Walnut house eventually led me to claim West Seattle as my own Emerald City base. May similar homes survive everywhere to inspire us all.

THEN: In about 1930, Clay Eals’ mother, Virginia Slate (left), and her sister, Betty, stand in back of the Walnut house, dressed as a “man and woman act” that performed “the cakewalk” four blocks away at the Portola Theatre, which in 1942 was enlarged to become today’s Admiral Theatre. (Eals family collection)
THEN: Joseph and Florence Slate, first owners, stand in back of the Walnut house in the mid-1940s. (Eals family collection)

WEB EXTRAS

Special thanks to Bill Reid, Whitney Mason, Midori Okazaki, Ann Ferguson, Mahina Oshie, Joe Bopp and especially Deb & Bill Bigelow for their help with this installment.

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below are a video interview of Deb Bigelow, 7 additional photos, a property record card from the Puget Sound Regional Branch of Washington State Archives and 12 historical clippings from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library) that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

VIDEO (12:17): Click this image to see an interview with Deb Bigelow, who with her husband Bill owned the Walnut Avenue home from 1985 through spring 2022. (Clay Eals)
The Walnut Avenue house on April 12, 1926, shortly after the Slate family moved in. The oblong angles result from correcting the photo’s horizon line. (Eals family collection)
A rear view of the Walnut Avenue house on April 12, 1926, shortly after the Slate family moved in. The oblong angles result from correcting the photo’s horizon line. (Eals family collection)
The Walnut house today, near the corner of Walnut Avenue Southwest and Southwest Lander Street. (Clay Eals)
The Walnut house, built in 1925, with a newer home (left) built in 1967 on the former Slate vegetable garden. (Clay Eals)
Mountain detail of the golden-brown tiled living-room fireplace of the Walnut house. (Clay Eals)
Mountain detail of the golden-brown tiled living-room fireplace of the Walnut house. (Clay Eals)
A two-page spread in the April 2022 edition of Old House Journal, featuring the remodeled kitchen of the Walnut house. (Clay Eals)
Click the image to download a pdf of the late-1930s Property Record Card for the Walnut house. (Puget Sound Regional Branch, Washington State Archives)
Nov. 18, 1926, West Seattle Herald indicates Walnut house as meeting site.
March 11, 1934, Seattle Times, p11, indicates Walnut house as polling place.
March 13, 1934, Seattle Times, p2, indicates Walnut house as site of polling place.
Dec. 6, 1936, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p44, indicates Walnut house as luncheon site.
June 23, 1937, Seattle Times, p39, indicates lot north of Walnut house for sale.
Jan. 21, 1939, Seattle Times, p13, indicates Walnut house as site of talk.
April 7, 1939, West Seattle Herald indicates Walnut house as club meeting site.
May 25, 1939, West Seattle Herald indicates Walnut house as club meeting site.
August 1956 ad in West Seattle Herald indicates Walnut house for sale.
Aug. 15, 1956, Seattle Times, p52, indicates Walnut house for sale.
Oct. 30, 1983, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p74, indicates Walnut house for sale.
July 22, 1984, Seattle Times, p72, indicates Walnut house for sale.

 

4 thoughts on “Seattle Now & Then: House on Walnut Avenue, 1942”

  1. Nice story! It’s great that you were able to visit and reminisce! I do think this is a prairie style house more than a craftsman style though. Beautiful home!

    1. Thanks, Stuart. I’ll split the difference and make it prairie Craftsman. –Clay

      1. Clay, thanks for continuing the weekly “Seattle Then and Now” feature in the Times. I’ve been an avid reader since its inception and have all the books including Paul’s 1981 “294 Glimpses of Seattle history”. I especially appreciate the stories of the people involved. Keep up the good work!

      2. Thanks for the kind words, Stuart. Jean Sherrard and I are grateful for the opportunity to carry on Paul’s tradition and legacy.

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