This week above Melrose — thanks to a CHS reader for the tip and photo
The last of the Melrose spite mound houses is gone. The old hill it rose up on also could be hauled away.
Demolition crews this week did quick work of the 117-year-old Queen Anne-style home that long ago became office space above Melrose as the street became home to popular food and drink and shopping destinations like Melrose Market, Mamnoon, and the Starbucks Reserve Roastery.
The family behind Boehm Design Associates sold the old house and its 5,250-square-foot parcel smack in the middle of the entertainment district for $2.75 million in January.
The house wasn’t a protected landmark but it was certainly historical, surviving decades atop the last remnants of Pike Street Hill.
CHS featured this history of the Melrose spite mound houses left behind by the turn of the century regrade efforts that reshaped Capitol Hill and Seattle. One was demolished to make way for the massive preservation incentive-boosted Excelsior Apartments development at Melrose and Pine. The other survivor was torn down this week.
It is not clear what will come next but there is one obvious path. The property was first lined up for demolition in 2019 but the permit wasn’t approved until late last year, according to the city. Neighboring property owners had recently complained about graffiti on the cleared-out house. The property’s new ownership, meanwhile, is obscured by a corporate shell. A limited liability corporation managed by a Bellevue lawyer shows up on the paperwork.
Development will likely follow. “Several preliminary massing studies completed,” the real estate listing for the property reads for this “rare parcel in the coveted Pike/Pine corridor” zoned to 75-foot heights. Depending on how the development deals with all that old Pike Hill dirt, those 75 feet might push a little higher into the Melrose sky
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Just such an unnecessarily histrionic view of what development means. Literally just look at the Google street view embedded in this article: the abandoned old house is essentially the only parcel on the block without ground level retail! And the (heaven forbid!) boxy, gray Excelsior 2 doors down has like half a dozen retail spaces, all (?) occupied!
“Histrionic”?!
Sorry, DG, you are wrong. This house was an important piece of Seattle history but idiocy (and, likely, greed) prevailed. Again. Seattleites, especially policymakers here either have zero perspective on the importance of history and preservation or they just couldn’t care less. We don’t need more sterile, squat boxes replacing gems that will never be ‘built like that’ again. There is plenty of space on The Hill for development, if only we used it wisely (which we -developers, planners/politicos, etc.- don’t).
I see this type of housing all over the US, I’m not sure we need to be preserving everything just because it is old. The primary function of a city is to house people, not be a museum 🤷🏻♂️
I guess I don’t find this house that charming, it looks similar to how it did standing alone on that hill, isolated and not a part of the neighborhood 🤷🏻♂️
If any of the properties (many of which still have these zigzag walkways) on the hill actually opened themselves to the public, that would be great… Otherwise, they mostly sit like modern castles isolated from the world around them
p.s. I would much rather walk around and point out the monkey puzzle trees, and where the woodpeckerd are in volunteer park, but you all seem so obsessed with where some crank decided to be the first NIMBY in Seattle 🤦♂️
Fair enough, that was a bit much… but have you walked around Capitol Hill much, these seem like a dime a dozen and super reclusive. Maybe not the “spite mound” part, but really, if you care much about it turning into something cool than maybe you should work harder on making something like that happen rather than wish it so on a comment board…
“the abandoned old house is essentially the only parcel on the block without ground level retail!”
Hmm. Maybe there’s enough ground level retail.
Profit must be maximized.
Interesting! The article embedded about the history was a nice addition. Are there any other spite mound houses left (outside of Melrose) that resulted from regrades? I would have liked to have looked at the one featured with more awareness
Here’s a good history detailing the various regrades throughout the city. https://www.historylink.org/file/21204
Thank you! Love the rumor of people using ladders to get up to their Denny mound houses, true or not. And those photos of pre-regrade Seattle are great.
@ Neighbor, You can spot there here and there around town if you know what to look for.
Higher up that surrounding buildings (sometimes markedly so) older construction often pre-1910. Many times there will be a break int he sidewalk pattern of commercial as there was with this one.Occasionally tou will see them in residential neighborhoods as well.
Sad to see my old office from the 1980s bite the dust!
A lot of memories from those days!
Sad to see it go. I always imagined a family of vampires living in that one.
It was an architect’s office. He was always see in the daytime, so sorry to disappoint.
Is “spite mound house” an autocorrect error? I don’t know what that sequence of words is supposed to mean…
Not an autocorrect error, but a real term from Seattle’s history! Check this out: https://kuow.org/stories/they-were-crazy-seattleites-who-shaped-our-city/
R I P seattle history , beyond devastating to see this one go.
I loved this spite mound house! Lived next to it, always looked at the turret, and wished I could live there.
Lots of thoughts on changing the paint color to emphasize the features, adding to the coal black, slate, silver hardware. It was the perfect Addams family vibe. You were loved, little house, even with all the invasive ivy covering the front. I always wanted to rescue it.
So sad I never got to visit; I’ll never forget you.