The Stimson Statement -- This Queen Anne Home Evokes Eclectic Historical Periods And Styles

The following is excerpted from "The Stimson Legacy - Architecture in the Urban West" by Lawrence Kreisman. The architectural history focuses on the commercial and residential buildings constructed by and for one American family over the course of a century. Published by Willows Press, Seattle, 1992; distributed by the University of Washington Press. Copyright 1992 by the author.

SHORTLY AFTER THE HOUSE at 1204 Minor Ave. became the family seat for lumberman C.D. Stimson and his family, brother Frederick bought property on West Highland Drive with a dramatic view of the harbor and began planning an equally substantial house for his family.

Frederick liked his brother's home; the English style suited him, as it did his neighbors, A.S. Kerry, Harry Whitney Treat and C.H. Black.

All four men went shopping for an architect and chose Charles Bebb, who had impressive credentials and skills as an engineer and designer, including work in the Chicago office of Adler and Sullivan.

As Kirtland Cutter's supervising architect on the C.D. Stimson residence, Bebb probably knew C.D.'s brother Frederick as early as 1899. By the time Frederick began thinking about a home on the southwest slope of Queen Anne Hill, the firm of Bebb and Mendel had already attracted attention for its brand of English medieval residential architecture so popular elsewhere in the country at the turn of the century.

Bebb designed a three-story home, its stucco and half-timbered upper floors rising above a fortress-like stone ground floor punctuated by shingled square bays. The cross-gabled roof with overhanging eaves terminated in decorative truss verge boards. At the rear of the house, facing south to views of Puget Sound and the city and supported by its own stone pillars, was a large, shingled sunroom with wrap-around windows.

Bebb believed the best craftsmanship and the widest variety were still obtainable only in the East. Consequently, the William A. French Co. of St. Paul was commissioned to oversee the interiors. Each of the rooms was to evoke a particular historic period and style, ranging from Elizabethan to Italian Renaissance to Indian, Persian and English Arts and Crafts.

On June 15, 1903, the firm presented bids that listed the various treatments for decorating the house. The first-floor hall would be decorated with white oak friezes, the ceiling finished in oil, stippled, then decorated in Elizabethan design around the beams. Portieres (draperies in each of the doorways) were to be of orange-red crinkled tapestry with leather applique and borders in Elizabethan design.

In the billiard and adjoining smoking room, rich, red burlap panels on the lower wall would be complemented with upper walls decorated in an Indian design. Portieres and over curtains here were to be of canvas with applique and heavy embroidery in Indian designs and soft silk curtains.

The main-floor reception room was to be paneled in Circassian walnut with fine Italian Renaissance tapestry and finished with silk galloon. The upper wall would have a frieze with "rich decoration in the same style, to be done on canvas and put in place." The beamed oak ceiling would be covered with canvas and done in oil color with a soft stipple finish.

In the drawing room, yellow poplar walls in Georgian design would be combined with upper walls covered in green silk damask, and the ceiling finished with "rich plaster relief moulded decoration ... the ceiling and cornice to be finished in rich old ivory shade, to correspond with the woodwork." Four pairs of portieres of plain green velvet decorated with rich Kensington embroidery and lined with sateen would complement the wall colors. Silk curtains with moss silk edging were suggested for the east windows.

The oak dining room's walls would have tapestry panels and its ceiling would have "a heavy Old English plaster ornamentation." The portieres for this room were to be of blue old English Reps with tapestry borders to correspond with the tapestry wall hangings.

Each of the six bedrooms was to be decorated differently, to evoke English, Indian and Persian environments. The decorator's penchant for the popularly promoted English styles is apparent in his suggestion of William Morris-pattern "Myrtle" paper for the master bedroom, and the use of other English botanical papers - roses, tiger lilies, tulips and birds - for other rooms. The finest imported linens, silks, sateens, embroidery and tapestry were to be used.

The basement hall wainscoting would be covered with green Japanese leather, and the upper wall hung in green burlap, with a frieze decoration and tinted ceiling.

The estimate for furnishings, woodwork, rugs and carpets totaled $25,000 - a substantial sum in 1903. By April 30 of the following year, the actual costs had escalated to more than $30,000.

French corresponded frequently with Stimson. He arranged for one of his foremen to come out and install the various woodwork fabric and furnishings as they arrived in Seattle.

By Jan. 9, the woodwork had been installed, although French made reference to the dampness of the house and his concern that it might have an adverse effect on the paneling, causing it to shrink as it dried out. In fact, he was covering himself in the event that they would complain later. As he put it, "If such shrinkage should occur in the future, you will understand that it was neither due to poor workmanship or green lumber."

Despite his hopes of having the house completed by February, the Stimsons were at the Butler Hotel, still selecting from samples of damask for ballroom furniture, in April 1904. That month, two furniture cars were shipped from St. Paul with everything but the ballroom and the reception-room furniture, which French immodestly noted as "undoubtedly the finest thing we have ever done, both the design and the workmanship being exquisite."

Grand as this home was, it did not fit the lifestyle the Stimsons were ultimately to choose. Only a few years after the house was occupied, Frederick and his wife began searching for property in the country for a summer home and weekend retreat. They found acreage in the Sammamish Valley near the farming community of Woodinville - north of the Clise estate in Redmond and brother C.D.'s own hunting retreat, the Willows. Stimson proceeded to have a Craftsman-style estate house built about 1910.

The house became the showpiece of his Hollywood Farm (now the grounds of Ste. Michelle Winery). Here he introduced many innovations in dairy farming, while his wife maintained extensive greenhouses where she raised roses for sale. From the nearby main line of the Northern Pacific Railroad running through the Sammamish Valley, a siding was built that terminated in front of an ice-cream parlor on the farm. In little more than a decade, F.S. had shifted his interests from urban high society to dairyman extraordinaire.

Lawrence Kreisman is coordinator of "Viewpoints" Seattle Architecture Tours and is author of six publications on regional architecture and historic preservation. He writes regularly for Pacific. Greg Gilbert is a Seattle Times staff photographer.