Apartment Builder Anhalt Dies At 101

Designer and builder Fred Anhalt - a proud perfectionist whose 1920s Mediterranean, French Normandy and English Tudor bungalow courts and apartments grace local hills - left a lasting mark on Seattle design.

And Mr. Anhalt, like his "Seattle castles" that colored the city's architecture, was built to last. When he died yesterday, July 17, of pneumonia, Mr. Anhalt was 101.

"His longevity almost speaks to his tenacity to hold firm to his ideas and work-life and getting things done," said Lawrence Kreisman, architecture-tour guide and editor of a pictorial account of Anhalt's work, "Apartments by Anhalt."

"There were some obstinate qualities about him, and he had no architectural training but had quality people working for him that filled in what he lacked."

Mr. Anhalt, born in Canby, Minn., and reared on a farm in Westby, N.D., left school in the seventh grade to become a butcher. He moved to Seattle about 1920 to begin a butcher-equipment business.

While creating a building for himself, he liked the process so much that he soon was erecting bungalows on a courtyard on Queen Anne Hill. A new career was born.

His business took off as he mixed European styles and luxury appointments such as hand-pegged hardwood floors, several entrances, separate dining rooms, circular staircases and landscaped courtyards to delight apartment-dwellers wanting the ambience of a private home.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Mr. Anhalt built about 30 apartment buildings or bungalow courts on Capitol Hill alone. More than a dozen still stand.

He had helped create the Twenties Townhouse, an oasis of familiar calm in a society driven by speed and technology - hence, his buildings' appeal today, Kreisman said.

In the mid-1930s, Mr. Anhalt sold his buildings and declared bankruptcy when his tenants couldn't keep up their rents, reducing his income to the point that he couldn't pay insurance premiums and loan interests.

He got out of apartments but continued to work in construction, building homes and other projects, including the original St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Seattle's Laurelhurst neighborhood.

In World War II, he entered the nursery business. He ran a nursery near University Village and sold it to the University of Washington in 1973.

In 1993, Mr. Anhalt accepted an honorary membership in the Seattle Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which cited him for his "valuable service to the profession of architecture" and for excellence in residential design.

And last year, when he turned 100, he was feted by the Capitol Hill Community Council, Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and the Broadway Business Improvement Association.

"He was creative but was always interested in making a living to support his family," said his son-in-law, Donald Graham Jr. of Edmonds. "He lost the apartments in the 1930s. But they're like his children, so he maintained an interest in them over the years."

Mr. Anhalt was a "very strong-willed man" with few interests in life other than his work and family, Graham added. "He was an action person, doing what he was doing and being very good at it."

Other survivors include his daughter, Felecia Graham of Edmonds; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. His first wife, Cresence Borchert Anhalt, died in 1969. His second wife, Henrietta Anhalt, died in 1981.

Services are scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 4805 N.E. 45th St. Remembrances may go to the Arboretum Foundation, 2300 Arboretum Drive E., Seattle, WA 98112.