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Published in The Seattle Times online on March 14, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 17, 2024

A Seattle treasure soon to be demolished — but not forgotten

By Jean Sherrard

Our mission, should we choose to accept it: Find a rare image of a soon-to-be razed mansion and repeat it on location. Surely not impossible, right?

Fortunately, the Museum of History & Industry supplied the only extant “Then” photo of what director Leonard Garfield calls “one of the great private estates from one of Seattle’s golden eras.”

But capturing the “Now” photo proved a greater challenge.

“This is a caper,” MOHAI board member Maria Denny said as we glided through Montlake Cut in a battered cabin cruiser, turning north into Lake Washington on a balmy winter’s afternoon.

Maria’s great-great uncle Rolland Denny (1851-1939) commissioned noted Seattle architectural firm Bebb & Mendel to design a three-story Spanish Mission Revival mansion. Completed in 1907, it was christened Loch Kelden — a fusion of wife Alice Kellogg’s name and Denny’s own. Overlooking “Loch” Washington, the then-50-acre estate was a wilderness retreat accessible only by boat from Madison Park.

In 1974, the Unification Church acquired the mansion and its remaining 1.7 acres, using it as a domicile and hosting dignitaries, including founder Sun Myung Moon and his wife.

On the market since 2022, Loch Kelden recently was sold to developers for what real-estate sites say is $5.999 million, “pending feasibility.” Preservationists could not nominate it as a city landmark because the state Supreme Court has exempted religious entities from landmark designation unless such owners support or seek it. Thus, demolition appears imminent.

In February, Scott Dolfay, the church’s retired property manager and caretaker for more than two decades, graciously offered a farewell tour to a group of historians. Two days before our visit, however, the invite was rescinded due to a strict nondisclosure provision of the sale agreement. Access to the grounds to take our repeat photo also was denied.

So we opted for a boat’s-eye view. Putt-putting past expansive waterfront homes, we spotted the cream-colored mansion on Windermere bluff. “Spectacular!” said Maria Denny. “I’d forgotten how lovely it is.”

It stirred a raft of family memories as well. Her father, the late Brewster Denny, often visited Loch Kelden, fondly recalling his 11th birthday party, thrown there by his “Great Uncle Roll,” notably the youngest member of the well-known Nov. 13, 1851, Alki landing party.

Two months old and near starvation, Rolland was not expected to live. But Duwamish tribal members supplied the infant with life-saving clam nectar.

In the end, why does this lovely place matter? For Maria Denny, the answer is simple: “Holding onto pieces of history means that we continue remembering them.”

An improbable and uphill mission, perhaps not yet impossible.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Elke Hautala, Cari Simson, Scott Dolfay , Leonard Garfield, Eugenia Woo and Maria Denny  and Howard Lev for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Jean Sherrard’s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Jean, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column. Also, below you will find a video interview of Maria Denny by Clay Eals.

See below for 5 more photos from fall 2023 by David Williams.

And further below, see 8 photos from Magnolia resident Tab Melton, in the 1950s before he was born and when his family lived at Loch Kelden.

Here are the 1950s photos provided by Tab Melton, when his family lived in a log cabin on the Loch Kelden estate. The photos show Tab’s three older siblings. Tab recalls that when his father, George Melton, lived in the mansion, the two watched the Nov. 25, 1963, funeral of slain President John F. Kennedy on a portable TV in the mansion’s parlor, where the copper fireplace was festooned with tapestries.