The landmark you save belongs to someone else

The announcement that the city of Seattle will nominate 38 downtown properties as landmarks, and probably 56 more, has stirred up enthusiasm for old structures. I share the feelings. I like old buildings — the Seattle Tower, the Alaska Building and the mansions of Seattle's old rich.

I remind myself, however, that every property has an owner who has money and hope invested in it, holds responsibility for it and has rights over it. These buildings are not mine.

The preservationists talk of buildings as if they were just there, like craters on the moon. An example is a feature on the Harry Treat House that ran in the Post-Intelligencer of April 19, 2006.

"Neighbors want structure preserved," runs the sub-headline. The photo is of two of these neighbors in front of the building at 1 Highland Drive on Queen Anne Hill. It is not their building. They have not paid for it. When the roof wore out, they did not have to reroof it. They are not offering anything to the owners. On the contrary: The story shows them campaigning for government to clobber the owners.

Which it did.

One of the owners is Rueben Calixto, a man who, years ago, worked in the city's architectural office. There is irony if you like that sort of thing. More to the point, in 1973, Calixto bought a small house as an investment. Seattle was in a depression, the house was on Beacon Hill, and the price was low.

Over the years, Rueben and Jennifer Calixto bought run-down houses in the Rainier Valley, then duplexes and triplexes — fixing them up and buying up. In 1996, the Calixtos and another couple were able to buy the Harry Treat House at a tax sale for $1.29 million. The site was zoned mid-rise residential, suitable for a 55- to 65-unit condo project.

The Treat House, built in about 1905, is a four-story, 18,000-square-foot home that if erected today would be called a "monster house." Over the years, it was divided into 15 apartments. In the late 1940s, the owners replaced the wooden exterior with brick, and in the 1970s, they added stained-glass windows.

Calixto says the alterations spoil it as a landmark. City officials disagree. "Buildings are not museum pieces," says Karen Gordon, the city's preservation officer. "They can change and maintain their significance." And that may be so: Significance is in the mind.

The city intervened in May 2005 when Calixto was about to complete a sale for $8.75 million — a price that assumed the construction of 55 to 65 units, with parking. That is now forbidden. As a landmark, the Treat House may not have its exterior altered (including the bricks) without permission of the Seattle Landmarks Board. According to the city's appraisal, this lowered the property's value to $2.77 million.

Six million dollars, and probably more by now, has been denied the owner. "This was going to be our retirement," says Calixto, who has moved to California and feels not much appreciated by his old Seattle neighbors.

"A lot of the neighbors walking by had dogs that pooped in our yard," he says. "I was the one who cleaned that up."

So feels one owner. Art Skolnik, the former Seattle preservation officer who represented Calixto at city hearings, now aims to organize the owners of the 38 downtown properties under consideration for landmark status. Skolnik argues that cities should provide incentives to owners of historic buildings, and that landmark status should be voluntary.

Councilman Peter Steinbrueck disagrees. "There are deeper values here," he says. As for compensation, he notes that owners of landmark property downtown — but not Queen Anne — can sell development rights. It is not full compensation, but Seattle's law does not require full compensation. It requires only that the owner be allowed a reasonable return — and the city determines what that is.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is seattletimes.com">bramsey@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Editorial/Opinion at seattletimes.com