After my banking fiasco yesterday, I came home, ate lunch, relaxed, as I was completely wiped from getting sucked once again into the evil vortex known as West Seattle the day before, but around 2:30pm headed out for a short trip to visit the neighborhood just east and north of me, known apparently as the Stevens area of Capitol Hill.
My building is at the intersection of E Harrison and 12th Ave east, and if you head east and then north a few blocks, which is uphill from here, you will begin to hit an area which is positively chock full of older, richer two storey housing stock. I'd driven down this road a few days back, over the weekend, but these narrow streets were jammed with cars parked on both sides (for some inexplicable reason they allow that - it becomes so narrow that only one car can fit down the middle of the road, so if anyone is coming the other direction, one of you has to find a spot - if you can! - to pull over to get the fuck out of the other guy's way), hence me going during the daytime, when presumably one of the wealthy breadwinners would be at whatever their version of 'work' is.
Which was exactly the case - the streets were now half empty of parked cars, so I drove to this area, which is adjacent to Volunteer Park, pulled over and parked, and then strolled for a few blocks down 16th.
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I've done some architectural research just now - praise god for the internets - and found out that the style house that is so prevalent in this area is called by a name I'd never heard before: the Seattle Box Craftsman. I've also seen it described once just now as a "Four Square Craftsman" which I think is more fitting, because you do typically picture a Craftsman home as what it's otherwise known as, a bungalow, which is usually one and a half storeys, and which are normally small and sweet and quaint, and not the generous two story four square-ish, Hipped Roof Colonial-like box houses that are in this neighborhood. But whatever - the prevailing opinion seems to be the former - Seattle Box Craftsman, so I'll go with that.
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Like all Craftsman houses, these from what I've seen just now were built between 1900 and 1930-ish, but it appears that this neighborhood in particular was developed closer to the 1900 end. I just read a stat, in fact, saying that less than 1% of Seattle's housing stock was built before 1900, which provides me once and for all with the answer as to exactly why this favorite style of mine just happens to be so common here - because the freaking place was being developed exactly at the time that this style was prevalent.
Hooray!!
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Here, I just found this, which is so intensely cool I could poop my pants:
Some undated Seattle housing plans, and as you can see, the cost of building this place, including a cement basement and cement flooring (!) was a whopping $2,400. Not a small sum circa 1900 by any means, but still !!!
Okay, and here are the houses I saw yesterday. Check them out vs the above blueprint thing! And may I say I'm absolutely crazy about those jutting box-window things. I can't believe these fantastic historic gems sit just blocks from where I am right now.
(Yes, this is how much I am a lunatic - architecture excites me like a dog.)
Again - bear with me - check these photos out against the blueprint above! It's so cool!
AAHHHHH!! Isn't that exciting?? Seriously! A direct link to history - that you can walk around a neighborhood for free and find yourself firmly inside your grandmother's, or great grandmother's time. Magic.
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Here are some other astonishingly beautiful houses along this same street, of varying styles, but most with that fantastic overhanging roof thing. This first one, in large part I'm sure because of that color, and that gorgeous, inviting porch, is among my very favorites:
And speaking of porches, how about this one, tucked deep inside that steeply pitched roof?
And these two different, equally stunning yellow numbers:
And Christ, I could have a heart attack over this one:
That crazy three storey turret! That joined set of small arched windows along the middle! The jutting box window next to it! The fucking exposed rafters under that overhanging roof!
And the below - that double, miniature wannabe turret on either end. That bay window. All the fucking windows. Phew.
And here is some detail I focused in on, which was particularly fantastic, and very common in this neighborhood:
How about that aqua???
And this side window box thing, below?
The old tree stock in the area was just gorgeous - this area defines 'tree lined streets', and the natural greenery and landscaping were stunning, also. A huge bonus was that it was entirely low key and didn't appear at all to be planned by teams of gardeners as you so often find in pricy neighborhoods. This was typical:
And as you can see in that photo, the houses here were all right on top of each other, and back to back - none of these folks have large yards or lots.
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So weird, this Capitol Hill place. There is certainly a homeless element, and apparently a gay element; there are the rock clubs down in the Pike/Pine corridor, and plenty of businesses, cafes, restaurants, burger and pizza joints, a community college, the whole rocker/pierced/purple-haired/tatooed set, both 48 acre Volunteer Park and Lake View Cemetery, and then you have this area with a collection, cheek by jowl, of the most magnificent historic homes anywhere, and, it turns out, of one certain regional style, or sect, perhaps, of one particular genre I'd never even heard of, inside of one of my favorite styles, ever - Craftsman.
Too effing cool.
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Lastly, after visiting this area, I drove a bit further north, over to the corner of E Galer and 17th, and popped into Volunteer Park Cafe, for some tea, and a slice of homemade chocolate bundt cake.
It was around 3pm or so, and the place was mostly empty except for some kids I would estimate to be around 12 or 13 years old, sitting inside sipping drinks - clearly having stopped here after school and before heading home. They still had books and such with them. Imagine growing up in a place this gorgeous, I mean, seriously. Of course, they don't know it, nor probably care, but I think later on they will, once they leave home, etc. They'll realize how fucking spoiled and lucky they were.
Hate to say it, but the service in the cafe could have been friendlier, honestly, and the bundt cake was a bit dry, but I was too much on an architectural high to care. And maybe the guy was just tired from both breakfast and lunch service.
I sat outside, facing the building, and took the above pic - there were pretty little old fashioned green iron chairs and a small square rustic looking wooden table on the sidewalk, and that's where I ate my bundt cake.
The interior to this place was absolutely stunning, just fantastic, and I had to stop myself from snapping several photos of it, only because the place was small and I didn't want people thinking I was taking photos of them, but you can see from the shot above that the windows were enormous, and the one above the door opened outward/sideways like that, which is just so neat. The seating inside seemed original - rustic unpainted wood everywhere, and a glass display case, that I'm guessing was from the 1910's or 20's, behind which there were cookies and cakes, and the like.
I noticed that the cakes in the rear were sitting on what were vintage coffee tins - no joke - they actually looked original vintage, and I commented on how gorgeous the place was, and that I loved the effect of the elevated cakes on the old tins ... and the guy barely reacted. Maybe he doesn't see it, or again, maybe he was exhausted, or maybe he hates his job. Dunno. But I frankly can't imagine living in a world in which you are blind to stuff like that. Stuff that is truly breathtaking and to me, calming and stilling and even awe-ing, in it's history and beauty and in the story that it tells. Even if you don't know the frigging story - because you don't need to. You truly just need eyes.
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