Harriet Bullitt in 2011 (Image: CHS)

Harriet Bullitt, the face of her family’s foundation as it worked to create the super green Bullitt Center office building on Capitol Hill at 15th and Madison, has died at 97.

Bullitt, daughter of foundation founder Dorothy Stimson Bullitt, said her mother would have loved the building, though she “was not really a environmentalist — she just lived that way.”

“We are very proud to have our name associated with it,” Bullitt said in 2011 as the project broke ground.

The $32.5 million zero energy office building opened on Earth Day 2013 powered by solar energy and utilizing waste and rainwater in a structure lauded at the time as the “greenest office building in the world.”

As a trustee, Harriet Bullitt said the Bullitt Foundation was originally funded by her family beginning in 1991 with plans to exhaust its funding within a decade. Instead, the foundation went on to grant more than $200 million to environment-focused efforts as well as developing the Bullitt Center. In 2019, the foundation announced it would wind down its efforts. After 2024, the foundation will limit its focus on managing the Bullitt Center and will continue to administer the annual Bullitt Environmental Prize to emerging environmental leaders.

The foundation said before the pandemic, the Bullitt Center had “operated in the black for six years as a commercial office building.”  Tenants have included a mix of academic and tech firms including the Bullitt Foundation, International Living Future Institute, University of Washington Center for Integrated Design, and speaker and music tech firm Sonos.

While the Bullitt name is likely to be remembered thanks to the E Madison center, Kay Bullitt’s legacy will shape another part of the Capitol Hill environment. Kay Bullitt, sister in law to Harriet, died at 96 last year, leaving a legacy of Seattle philanthropy and hopes a new Capitol Hill park.

The Bullitt Life Estate is a 1.5-acre property “nestled within the residential neighborhood” on Harvard Ave E just south of St. Mark’s, the city’s description in a neighborhood plan from 1998 reads. The property covers twelve lots and includes “a unique A-frame house” designed by leading Pacific Northwest architect Fred Bassetti.

In 1974, the property was deeded to the city “for future park purposes, effective upon vacation of the property by the owner” as a life estate, ownership that allowed the family to reside on the property after it had been conveyed to Seattle Parks.

In recent years, work has been underway to design and create the Cass Turnbull Garden as part of the site, a project from Seattle nonprofit Plant Amnesty honoring its late founder.

UPDATE: “A public process will be conducted to create a design for the property donated by the Bullitt family,” a statement from Seattle Parks reads. “We have not yet set a date for when that process will be begin but it will be shared on the Seattle Parks and Recreation website when the time comes (and we’ll be sure to let CHS blog know as well).”

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