By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone
With so many unique and storied residential neighborhoods,
Seattle and its surrounding communities are jam-packed with
classic single-family houses, representing over a century of
West Coast design trends.
Given the vast inventory of timeless
homes, it’s tempting to wonder if
there is a single, unifying “Seattle
style,” an element or two that
brings it all together. To find out, let’s
take a brief tour of the classics to see
what’s in their shared DNA.
First Homes
There have been unique homes in the
Puget Sound region for thousands
of years. When the first Europeans
arrived, the indigenous coastal peoples
of the Salish Sea built longhouses—
large structures constructed with log
frames and split log planks (usually
cedar) and gambrel roofs—as communal
living spaces for large families.
As more non-native Americans arrived
from the East to work in the lumber
and shipbuilding industries, they
built shacks, cabins, and shanties—
threadbare structures fit mostly for
survival—using many of the same local
materials found in longhouses. After
the Klondike Gold Rush started in 1896,
growth and prosperity brought more
permanent housing and a burgeoning
homebuilding industry.
The classical age of the Seattle home
had begun.
Classic Seattle Homes
1900 to 1940
At the dawn of the twentieth century,
following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889,
thousands of homes sprung up overnight.
The most ostentatious was Millionaire’s Row
on Capitol Hill, a fantasia of blinged-out
palaces for the newly minted rich. But classic
homes with just as much character were
generously distributed throughout the city.
Queen Anne
This Victorian dollhouse is as expansive as
it is ornate, with porches large enough for
the whole family, corner towers that cry
out for attention, and a surfeit of exquisite
patterns and decorative details strewn across
their walls.
Seattle Box
A variation of the Foursquare, the Seattle
Box looks a bit like a two-story rectangle
and features four main functional rooms
(kitchen, entry hall, etc.) beneath four
bedrooms. Decorative façades and large
second-floor bay windows give the Box
late-nineteenth-century curb appeal.
Dutch Colonial Revival
The urban farmhouse of its age, this
neo-colonial style boasts gambrel roofs with
curved eaves running its length, producing
its characteristic barn profile. It’s an elegant
splash of pastoral charm wedged in the
urban landscape.
Tudor Revival
It’s about to get Elizabethan in here with
North America’s response to Britain’s
own revival of said style. Along with the
characteristic wood framing, stone and
stucco walls, and steep roofs that everyone
thinks of when they hear “Tudor,” this
regional variation also dons attractive
red bricks.
Craftsman Bungalow
A home so classic it’s been featured in this
magazine more than once. In many ways
defining old residential Seattle, Craftsman
homes were designed to look handcrafted—
with large overhanging eaves, low-pitched
roofs, and covered porches supported by
tapered wood columns.
Cape Cod
An understated classic in our residential
fabric, the quite modest, very New England
Cape Cod eschews ornamental details for
simple low-and-wide construction of one or
two floors, a mighty centerpiece chimney,
and steep gabled roofs. Throw in some
shingles for extra maritime flavor.
From Depression to War
1930 to 1945
1929 saw the end of the boom years as the
stock market crash sunk much of the world
into the Great Depression. History hit
the stop button on Seattle’s classic era as
massive shanty towns called Hoovervilles
popped up overnight.
Building resumed with the introduction
of federally-subsidized affordable housing
developments and later wartime construction
to accommodate Boeing employees and
other workers during World War II. This was
not an era of beauty but function first and
foremost, with thousands of lookalike homes
mass-produced across the region.
WWII-Era Cottage
These mass-produced homes might not
look like much, but they got the job done:
housing GIs and their families after the war.
Little more than plain 1,000-square-foot
structures that sometimes flirted with Art
Deco, these “war boxes” were built on basic
wood frames with simple siding or shingles.
Despite their modesty, many of these are
now highly prized by tiny house aficionados.
Homes of the Future
1946 to 1970
After the privation of the Great Depression
and War years, housing started blasting off
in leafy suburban-style tracts as post-war
Americans started careers and kicked off
the baby boom. The dawn of the Jet Age had
begun in Jet City, and Modern architecture,
art, and design were in full swing.
Boeing-era prosperity meant people were
buying a lot of automobile-friendly singlefamily
homes promising all the
latest doohickeys and amenities. These
were the “homes of the future,” filled
with ample space, modern appliances,
and other conveniences that seemed
beamed in from the future.
Northwest Regional (AKA Northwest Modern)
Our region’s answer to the International
style, NW Regional centers local wood with
ample unpainted lumber throughout. These
minimalist homes often feature floor-toceiling
windows and flat, shingled roofs with
ample eaves to keep things dry.
Mid-Century Modern
Mid-Century Modern is all about clean
lines, functionality, wide-open floorplans,
big light-flooding windows, connectivity
with outdoor space via sliding-glass doors,
and no-frills aesthetics. The perfect abode
for sipping cocktails and listening to Martin
Denny records.
Ramblers and Ranches
Low-slung and hugging the ground seem
to be major themes of this era. As a rule,
these paeans to the expansive landscapes
of the American West offered casual living,
asymmetrical but mostly rectangular
layouts, open floorplans, low-pitched roofs,
and just one highly accessible story.
Split Levels
The classic split-level is is a charming
throwback, recalling beloved suburban
family sitcoms of the 1970s. Similar in most
ways to other modern homes, these feature
multiple staggered floors connected by short
stairs leading from the main floor to the
master bedroom and basement. Fun to look
at, but you had better enjoy stairs.
Beyond Modern
1970 to 1990
The 1980s saw the intensification of masterplanned
housing and suburban tracts with
homes of hitherto unseen spaciousness.
While a lot of homes in this era generically
mimicked what came before, there was a
noticeable push among some homebuilders
for wildly eclectic and bare-bones minimalism.
Minimalist and Postmodern
Less of a style and more of an idea,
minimalist homes have been around since
the Bauhaus movement in the 1920s. A fairly
common approach in the Northwest—where
it melded with Japanese influences—this
style brought clean surfaces, empty space,
sleek lighting, and unfussy functionality to
their modernist zenith.
The Postmodern threw out the spartan
Modern approach for something more
idiosyncratic, eclectic, often wildly
sculptural and vibrantly colorful. While
most notable Postmodern designs can be
found in public and commercial spaces, any
house that combines disparate elements in a
playful or “deconstructed” way can be called
Postmodern-influenced.
Near Contemporary
1990 to 2000
Since the 1990s, density has been the name of
the game in those parts of Seattle not zoned
for single-family homes. The 1990 Growth
Management Act hemmed in development
within urban growth boundaries,
incentivizing denser single-family and
multifamily housing closer to city centers.
Master-planned communities continued to
grow in suburbs falling inside the boundary.
While a lot of homebuilding projects became
large-scale, regimented, or focused on infill,
Seattleites had never had so many singlefamily
options fit for every lifestyle.
Northwest Contemporary
Perhaps the most important trend in the
1990s, these homes drew from the rich well
of popular styles, especially Northwest
Regional—locally sourced materials like
wood and stone, exposed beams, open
floorplans, and a marked Japanese influence
with clean lines and a powerful sense of
open space.
Seattle Style?
Even leaving out several styles (Gothic
Revival, anyone?), this is a lot. Given the
aesthetic diversity and the fact that most of
these movements originated elsewhere, is
there really such a thing as Seattle style?
Short answer: Yes. But it’s not defined by any
one feature. It’s more of a guiding principle
that drives the way regional variations like
the Seattle Bungalow are designed. Most
were built to complement rather than
overpower their surroundings—the climate,
biomes, and beauty of the Puget Sound
region. As such, they share key elements,
including some going all the way back to
Salish longhouses.
David Miller, University of Washington
professor and award-winning AIA Fellow,
has identified a few: Simple structures
on raised foundations, large windows to
drink in rare sunny days, exposed posts
and beams that show off local materials,
and open layouts unifying the space.
They eschew hard-and-fast boundaries
between interior and outdoor space,
keeping occupants dry with big patios and
sheltering eaves.
When you look at old Seattle homes, fully
restored or radically remodeled, they often
feel right because most were designed with
this place in mind. Whether single-family,
“missing middle,” or multifamily, the
homes of today that will survive are those
elegantly adapted to their surrounding
nature and cityscape. These are the homes
that embody the Seattle style.
Houseboats
Floating homes have been a staple of Seattle since the
beginning, especially on Lake Union. Initially little more
than shanty-like structures housing shipbuilders, fishermen,
timber workers, and other laborers, houseboats were
considered largely undesirable in the early twentieth
century, starting as cheap housing solutions before
evolving into more “bohemian” communities.
During the apartment boom of the 1950s, houseboats very
nearly went extinct before being promoted and ultimately
codified by the city in the latter decades of the century—
eventually losing their low-rent reputation and achieving
a more glamorous status as part of Seattle’s waterfront
heritage. If you look at a few of the floating palaces of today,
it can be hard to imagine houseboats’ humble history.
Photo Credits
First Homes: Scott D. Sullivan
Seattle Box: Joe Mabel
Craftsman Bungalow: Courtesy Carlisle Classic Homes
WWII-Era Cottage: Courtesy Palmer Residential
Northwest Regional: Jeff Hobson for Lochwood-Lozier Custom Homes
Mid-Century Modern: Courtesy Carlisle Classic Homes
Minimalist: Courtesy Nip Tuck Remodeling
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