VintageSeattle.org

I have been meaning to send you some pictures of our 1906 Victorian home in the Garfield neighborhood of the Central District ever since you put the call out several weeks ago. I have dug up a couple of versions of the 1937 records photo, as well as a 1961 shot from the SDOT website. You can see some pretty significant facade changes between 1937 and 1961 — it always amazes me that people thought that faux brick/stone asphalt siding was preferable to the original finish details. But I guess the benefit was that it appears to have preserved the original clapboard and shake siding underneath all those years.

The owner before us bought the house in 2002 from an estate and proceeded to do much of the renovation over ~2.5 years as a “flip” project. He stripped off the 1960’s facade and restored many of the original details, as well as completely re-doing the interior. [...] We have proceeded to repaint the house in more interesting colors both outside and inside and do some re-landscaping since then as can be seen in the 2007 pictures.

We hope to someday restore the curved Victorian bracket details in the four roof gables. The front one was completely missing, the back one was missing a piece, and the two dormer ones were dangerously holding on when we bought the house, so we had them all taken down for now until we can get them re-done.

You can also see in both the vintage as well as the modern pictures that our two 1906 neighbor houses are still around as well. The house to the right is a near identical mirror twin of ours, but interestingly we have found out that originally the foundation was intended for a different house that never got built and instead became a near copy of our house.

Bryan Bucklin
Via E-Mail
9/4/08

The George Washington Carmack House at 1522 E. Jefferson Street is for sale and being offered as a 4,800 square foot lot (no mention of the house) in a neighborhood that has already lost all its single family residences due to Swedish/Providence hospital construction… The George Washington Carmack House at 1522 E. Jefferson Street is for sale and being offered as a 4,800 square foot lot (no mention of the house) in a neighborhood that has already lost all its single family residences due to Swedish/Providence hospital construction… The National Park Service believes it has sufficient integrity for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It is privately owned and is being sold by Paragon (206-623-8880, Jon Breiner or Ed Hewson)… Because of its important association with George Carmack, NPS has initiated a National Register nomination form for the property which we were planning on giving to the property owner to pursue. At the time, the owner was supportive of the nomination and knew the value of the house. She passed away in 2006 and her heirs are now selling the house. The house will likely be demolished as it is surrounded by Swedish Hospital buildings and a parking garage. While it could make for a wonderful addition to Swedish’s building inventory, they are not in the business of preservation. NPS is not in a position to help this house as it is way beyond our authority to do this. We have always talked about how it could be an associated property for the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park but it is outside of the Pioneer Square Historic District and the Park/NPS is limited in what it can do. I am hoping to raise awareness about this historic jewel, and hope that a sensitive buyer can be found. NPS would more than likely want to help interpret the history and significance of the place, if it can be saved. We would be happy to share the draft nomination form.