Townhomes on Millionaire’s Row? Appeal dropped over redevelopment value of 14th Ave E landmarked house

“The Caroline Horton House over time. (a) architect’s rendering of the house (Seattle Times, November 25, 1906); (b) 1937 archive photo (Washington State Archive); (c) recent photo (nomination report photo)”

Advocates for preservation of the city’s historic homes and properties have dropped their appeal over a Seattle Hearing Examiner decision this year that could allow a property owner to demolish a landmarked house on Capitol Hill’s Millionaire’s Row to develop a set of eleven townhomes on the 14th Ave E parcel just south of Volunteer Park.

Historic Seattle filed for the “voluntary dismissal” in the case last week.

The organization originally filed the appeal in January after the city’s Landmarks Preservation Board approved a “controls and incentives agreement” for the landmarked Caroline Horton House that imposed no restrictions on the 120-year-old house after the house’s owners were able to show just how valuable the property could be if developed.

According to the appraisal the house’s owners submitted, the property would be worth $3.1 million without preservation controls that would bar redevelopment. Under controls, the appraisal valued the property at only $1.9 million. Seattle’s landmarks statutes allow a property’s economic value to be part of the determination of preservation agreements. In their decision, city officials also cited 15th Ave’s Sullivan House, another Capitol Hill landmarks case in which a property was ruled worthy of protections but the landowner’s appeal was granted over economic factors.

Following the board’s decision to impose no controls on the Caroline Horton House in January, Historic Seattle appealed the decision saying the board had erred in recognizing the 40% delta in value, arguing the statutes should protect an investor’s “reasonable” value — not “maximum.”

But the organization dropped its appeal last week before the next major hearing in the case that had been scheduled for April. CHS has an inquiry out to Historic Seattle about the decision.

In the meantime, any eleven townhome development lined up for the 14th Ave E property remains theoretical. A check of city permits and county sales records shows no recent transactions or filings. The old house — also known in the neighborhood as the Mary and Martha Hall for its time serving as “a boarding house for young girls, run by St. Marks Church.” — is now considered a sixplex.

Millionaire’s Row is seeing some change this winter, however. CHS reported here as the street’s Shafer Baillie Mansion has been sold.

CHS reported here in 2022 as the Caroline E. Horton House began its trip through the Seattle Landmarks process. The grand American Foursquare on 14th Ave E near E Roy, thanks to the long ago clearcutting of Capitol Hill, once had a grand view of the young city. But its place on the city’s landmarks roster was earned less by its architecture and more by the life of Caroline Horton, the daughter of pioneer Dexter Horton who rose to business prominence to the city:

After Dexter Horton’s death in 1904, Caroline Horton became an heiress and ran her father’s large real estate concerns. She built the Caroline Horton House, and moved there with Arabella Horton, Dexter Horton’s third wife, and Eliza Hammond, the niece of Dexter Horton’s first wife. Since Caroline was the daughter of Dexter Horton’s second wife, all three of his marriages were represented in her house.

“The Caroline Horton House is associated with the Dexter Horton family more than any other house still standing,” the nomination packet for the house read at the time.

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