The Seattle City Council this week amid trying to sort out issues around regional homelessness also made a decision Capitol Hill neighbors and the city’s landmarks review board already know — 11th Ave E’s Highland Apartments building is worthy of protections on the 1924-built masonry structure,

Last week, the council approved legislation on the protections approved previously by the Landmarks Preservation Board that will ensure the Tudor Revival style building’s exterior is protected even as it undergoes a major seismic overhaul. The old brick building can use the work — it suffered $21,000 in the 2001 Nisqually quake.

CHS reported on the overhaul project and landmarks bid last year. Though it is technically a condo building, the 12 units are owned by a company owned by prolific Capitol Hill real estate investor Morris Groberman and the units are leased as apartments. At the time, the property is being prepared for a “structural retrofit of an unreinforced masonry building” and for upgrades including converting the building’s laundry room and adding stacking washer and dryer setups to the apartments.

The board approved the property as a landmark citing it, especially, as an excellent showcase of the work of its architects:

The architects Stuart & Wheatley designed the subject building in a Tudor Revival style, massed as a palatial brick block with three stories over a rusticated base, and with three fullheight chamfered-corner bays projecting from the front elevation. These large bays, which serve as sunrooms for the units, measure approximately 10 by 10 feet in plan. Deep red rug face brick was used on the main elevation. The first floor of the main elevation is rusticated with a layer of pale gray cementitious plaster over board-formed concrete, scored to resemble stone blocks.

Now nearly 96 years later, its official landmark status joins the seismic work underway protecting the historic exterior.

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