Seattle used to be filled with Victorian mansions. Where did they all go?

SEATTLE - Seattle today bears little resemblance to the city that once rose around some of its wealthiest residents.

Grand Victorian mansions once occupied prominent blocks in neighborhoods now dominated by hospitals, high-rises and commercial buildings. They were enormous, ornate and designed to command attention.

"I always think of the weight of them. They fill their space," said Jennifer Ott, executive director of HistoryLink. "They’re centerpieces. They look a little bit like cakes sometimes."

On First Hill, the transformation is particularly striking. There were once 40 grand homes scattered across the neighborhood. Today, only four remain.

When First Hill was ‘the spot’

Today, First Hill is dominated by hospitals and condos, earning it the nickname "Pill Hill." Single-family homes are in short supply.

Real estate agent Emily Anderson said she now primarily sells condos in the neighborhood to people in the medical profession who want to live close to the hospitals.

But First Hill once looked very different.

"It was once the spot," said Anderson. "This used to be the place to be, and I don’t know that we say that anymore."

Anderson imagines the neighborhood looking more like Millionaire’s Row on the north end of Capitol Hill—"With all of those giant tree-lined streets, and it was so beautiful."

Anderson said so many of Seattle’s mansions have disappeared, that the surviving Victorian homes can now seem unusual for the city.

"I think because so many of them were wiped out. People think of them as an anomaly for Seattle," said Anderson.

What happened to Seattle’s mansions?

Some of the lost homes survived for decades before ultimately giving way to a changing city.

The Ranke House on First Hill, once a home for Seattle’s elite, survived for roughly a century by being converted into a hospital. In 1994, it was demolished.

On Denny in South Lake Union once stood the Pontius House, regarded as one of Seattle’s finest examples of Queen Anne architecture. It was demolished in 1930. Today, high-rises line the street.

In Lower Queen Anne, Decatur Terrace once stood near what is now Climate Pledge Arena. A bank eventually replaced the home. Today, that bank is boarded up.

For Anderson, what came after some of the demolished homes is one of the most striking parts of their stories.

"The thing that stood out to me was that the new sites are vacant. I think that’s what really, really got me was a lot of the things that are now in these places are not thriving," said Anderson. "I think that it’s a shame to see a beautiful home having been torn down for what became a temporary use downtown space. Right? Like a bank that was used for a little bit."

Why did Seattle lose so many?

Ott said there is not necessarily one simple explanation for why Seattle lost so many of its older homes while Victorian architecture remains prominent in cities such as Portland and San Francisco.

"I think more than anything it’s a coincidence of time," said Ott. "If you have a city that’s expanding and needing to build new housing at a time when those buildings are particularly declining."

Sometimes, she said, older buildings survive simply because they remain unnoticed long enough for attitudes toward them to change.

"It goes through waves. I remember mid-century modern was considered not cool at all, and now they’re really cool," said Ott. "So, I do think it's a lot of luck that the right house meets the right person at the right time."

Seattle Center transforms a neighborhood

Lower Queen Anne offers another example of how larger changes to Seattle reshaped the neighborhoods surrounding these homes.

Before Seattle Center, Ott said the area was primarily residential, with some small business districts.

"So when you introduce a massive public campus like that," she pointed out. "Other things are going to seem much more out of place."

The 1962 World’s Fair pushed the neighborhood in a more mid-century direction.

"So you see the ripple effect of a big new public project, and it has its impacts throughout the neighborhood," said Ott.

The rise of the automobile and movement toward the suburbs also influenced how planners envisioned Seattle.

"They really see so much business and population loss to the suburbs that they’re like what can we do to replicate the good things about the suburbs here?" said Ott.

Seattle’s preservation movement gained momentum in the 1960s as the city considered urban renewal projects. Among the neighborhoods and landmarks that ultimately received protections were Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market.

But Ott said the question of what preservation should look like for the rest of Seattle has persisted.

"Then the trick has been and continues to be. What does that look like across the city?" said Ott.

The cost of building differently

The elaborate details that helped define Victorian architecture can also make that style difficult to replicate.

Anderson said modern builders are trying to create more housing, often with simpler designs that are less expensive and faster to construct.

"It's cheaper to build homes quicker that have less angles, less intrigue, less detail," said Anderson. "That’s what we’re seeing right now. Trying to create more housing for folks, but that does come at a cost, and the cost is usually charm."

Ott said she understands the desire to hold onto old buildings.

"I definitely have that conservative, historian’s bent where, if it's old, I want to keep it," she said. "I don’t care how dusty it is, but I do think the key is looking not just at a case-by-case basis, but think about the city, think about the structures that make it home to you."

But preservation is not always possible.

"Sometimes they look so lovely from the outside, and you get in, and you pull up a floor plank and dry rot has taken hold and sometimes […] it's just really unfortunate that you can’t preserve the building," said Ott.

Romanticizing Seattle’s past

Anderson said the debate becomes more complicated when considering who these enormous homes were originally built for and what the city needs today.

"Is that equitable for one family’s mansion to be the entire block?" she said.

Some surviving mansions have since been divided into multifamily housing, giving the buildings a new purpose.

Ott said older buildings converted into apartments can still be desirable places to live, even if they no longer serve their original function.

"They are lovely to live in, but they’re not being used for their original purpose and sometimes the shine is off."

Anderson also cautioned against viewing preservation only through nostalgia.

"I think a lot of it is people romanticizing the past," she said.

She said even the Victorian homes now viewed as pieces of Seattle history replaced something that came before them, like indigenous communities.

"It’s a really complicated situation to tare down a piece of ‘our history’ to build something new whereas that thing that was already built there from the Victorian era was also built on someone else’s history."

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