(WSB photo from May)

10 years ago – months after the fire that ravaged its interior – the Alki Homestead/Fir Lodge (2717 61st SW) appeared on an “endangered properties” list. But now it’s been rescued, restored, and reopened, and it’s won an award. Kathy Blackwell, president of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society board, reports Historic Seattle will be honoring the landmark at its Preservation Celebration this Thursday. It’s the winner of the Beth Chave Community Investment Award. One of its owners, Matt Schilling, will be there to accept the award; he and his father Dennis Schilling led the work to restore it after buying the historic log structure four and a half years ago.

(Photo courtesy SWSHS)

SWSHS nominated the project for the award; see the nomination here. As you probably know, the refurbished and reopened Homestead has been home to the restaurant Il Nido since May.

(WSB photos by Patrick Sand)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Tonight, the Alki Homestead reopens as a restaurant, almost 10 1/2 years after a fire shut it down.

While the new restaurant, Il Nido, is in a bright spotlight because of its owner’s reputation and talent, we thought the moment shouldn’t pass without remembering the years of concern that the city-landmarked Homestead – 115 years old and originally known as the Fir Lodge – would never reopen and might not even be salvageable.

We also thought you might want to see inside, since you won’t get a chance without reservations to dine at the restaurant, already booked a month out. (Thanks to Chef Mike Easton for letting us visit briefly today to photograph the interior hours before his restaurant’s first night.)

First – the past decade of history (go here to look even further back). Old West Seattle’s collective hearts sank at news of the January 2009 fire, blamed on faulty Christmas lights. Then-owner Tom Lin had been in the process of selling the beloved home-style restaurant. Post-fire, he told WSB that it would likely take “more than six months” to repair and reopen.

No one likely could have imagined it would take a decade.

The sale did not go through. By March, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society expressed public concern about the landmark’s future. By May, the Homestead was on an annual “Endangered Properties” list. In September 2009, Lin briefed the Alki Community Council on possibilities for the Homestead’s future – maybe a restaurant, bar, spa, B&B.

Its future was still a question mark by July 4, 2010, when 150+ people gathered for that group photo outside the Homestead, declaring “This Place Matters.” The following January, on the two-year anniversary of the fire, preservation groups reiterated their concerns – “Somebody has to speak for the building.” Later that month, Lin and architects brought a new plan to a committee of the city Landmarks Preservation Board, and advocates declared they were “thrilled.” Questions lingered about whether, and how, the building could be salvaged, but proposals went through four public reviews in six months until things went quiet again.

Then in December 2013, almost five years post-fire, the Homestead was listed for sale. A prospective buyer emerged more than a year later, Dennis Schilling, a Mercer Island real-estate investor known locally for buying and restoring Alki’s Shoremont Apartments, once proposed for demolition and site redevelopment. That spring, it was announced triumphantly that Schilling was going ahead with the purchase. He promptly set about doing some of the restoration work himself.

(Dennis Schilling, Alki Homestead owner – May 2015 photo by Clay Eals)
In June 2015, another group photo outside the Homestead – this time celebratory:

(Photo by Jean Sherrard, courtesy SWSHS)

Students from Alki and Schmitz Park Elementary Schools gathered for what the SWSHS dubbed a “group hug.” But while the building had been saved, its future wasn’t yet clear. Its “rehabilitation plan” won city Landmarks Board approval in March 2016. Would it eventually reopen as a restaurant? The answer finally came last September, when Chef Easton announced the plan for Il Nido. A few days later, the Homestead’s famous neon sign returned from 2+ years of restoration:

(WSB photo, September 2018)

Inside, the work of turning the Homestead back into a restaurant began. Easton told us at the time, “It initially seemed to be such a big project, just how much restoration needed to happen – I wrote it off as more than I wanted to do. But the building sort of has a haunting effect on you.” Now the work is done, and we visited for photos as final touches were readied for Il Nido’s opening.

Whether or not you ever dine at Il Nido, you might want to see what’s happened inside the Homestead:

(For a kitchen view, here’s Easton’s own Instagram photo.) The grounds have been re-landscaped:

And we’re told they hope to open the back patio in July. But first – it’s opening night, as a new chapter in the Homestead/Fir Lodge’s history begins.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Next Wednesday afternoon, the full city Landmarks Preservation Board will formally consider the Alki Homestead‘s restoration plans. As a prelude, Homestead owner Dennis Schilling and his architect Jeff Hamlett spoke this morning with the board’s Architectural Review Committee – almost exactly one year after we first reported that Schilling was the historic Fir Lodge‘s new owner, and more than seven years after the fire that ravaged and closed what had been a beloved restaurant.

What is before the board now isn’t the full site plan, which is eventually expected to include apartments to the south of the city landmark. But because much of the Homestead is protected, changes and repairs have to get approval from the board as well as from city staff.

The committee meetings are open to the public but informal, so this morning’s session was a discussion more than a presentation. And this stage of the review generally follows months of discussions between building owners and city staffers:

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With the first phase of the Alki Homestead‘s restoration under way, the years of uncertainty about its future are receding further into memory. But today, there was a tribute to one moment along the way: Five years ago on the 4th of July, a big group photo outside the landmark log building proclaimed “This Place Matters” and to underscore their belief that its future eventually would brighten. Today, during the Southwest Seattle Historical Society‘s annual picnic at the Log House Museum – the Homestead’s old carriage house – there was a break to take an anniversary photo, with participants of all ages affirming that “This Place Still Matters.”

Today’s group was not big in size but was certainly big in heart. The top photo is our take from the sidewalk; an official photo from across the street was taken by Jean Sherrard, who was also the photographer five years ago, as well as four weeks ago when a thousand students came to the Homestead for the photo dubbed a “group hug” (WSB coverage here). A copy of that was part of today’s photo too:

The Homestead also was feted today in the choice of main dishes for the SWSHS picnic – fried chicken!

P.S. Another step in its path to restoration will come next Friday, when the Architectural Review Committee of the city Landmarks Board will look at the newest plans during its 8:30 am meeting on the 40th floor of the city Municipal Tower downtown.

(Dennis Schilling, Alki Homestead owner, shows the logs he has just transported to its parking lot)
Two and a half months after Dennis Schilling bought the Alki Homestead/Fir Lodge, there are visible signs of its upcoming restoration. Thanks to Clay Eals, Southwest Seattle Historical Society executive director, for the photo and update:

Fifteen fir logs arrived in the Alki Homestead parking lot this afternoon, awaiting use in replacing damaged logs in the southeast corner of the building.

The logs are stored in a trailer that owner Dennis Schilling drove from Mountain Log Homes in Kalama, north of Portland. Each log is about 16 1/2 feet long.

Schilling said work will begin soon on shoring up the interior of the southeast corner of the Homestead to allow eventual replacement of damaged logs that have been marked for several months with blue tape.

In preparation for this work, Schilling’s crew installed anchor fence to surround the front entrance of the Homestead as a protective measure.

There is no set schedule for the log replacement, but some of the work may begin by the time of a group photo to be taken of 900 students from Alki and Schmitz Park elementary schools the morning of Friday, June 5, 2015. As part of the brief event, speakers will include King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen.

Schilling has been consulting with a structural engineer, and his crew has installed temporary power and begun cleaning out non-landmarked, fire-damaged materials from the kitchen. Soon his crew will measure roof angles in preparation for repair, along with eventual restoration of the iconic Alki Homestead sign.

More backstory on this page of the SWSHS website – and going even further back, in our archive of WSB Alki Homestead coverage, including the January 2009 fire that has left it vacant for more than six years.

The city-landmark Alki Homestead officially has a new owner, according to documents filed with the county, dated today: Fir Lodge LLC has purchased it for $1,250,000. Fir Lodge, of course, is the historic name of the log building at 2717 61st SW. And the LLC is in the name of Dennis Schilling, with whom we talked back in January about his prospective purchase of the Homestead, closed since a fire damaged its interior six years ago.

Schilling is a Mercer Island-based investor who already has a success story in Alki, having purchased and fixed up the once-threatened-with-demolition Shoremont Apartments, just blocks east of the Homestead. His interest in the historic lodge came more than three years after former owner Tom Lin‘s proposed renovation plan went idle following multiple reviews with members of the city’s Landmarks Board, which has jurisdiction over changes to buildings and sites that are under city landmark protection, as this one has been since 1996. Schilling has been talking with the Landmarks Board and other city reps about his hopes of renovating the building and possibly building a few apartments on part of its current parking lot; we were there as he talked with the board’s Architectural Review Committee in late January.

New ownership is only a first step into the Homestead’s future, but we expect to find out much more about what’s next for it tomorrow morning, as the Southwest Seattle Historical Society – which has been working for years to save the Homestead – has announced a media briefing with “a major announcement” at 9 am, and we’ll be there. SWSHS has many ties to the Homestead/Fir Lodge, not the least of which is the fact that its headquarters building, the Log House Museum a half block away, was its carriage house decades ago.

ADDED SATURDAY MORNING: The official news release is on the Log House Museum site; we’re at the LHM news conference where the sale and restoration plan are being officially announced.

(2012 WSB photo of Alki Homestead, with part of parking lot visible at left)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

If you own a city landmark, what you do with it is subject to a set of rules that can delve into details as minute as window trim.

And you usually have to go before the city Landmarks Preservation Board to get approval before renovations/changes. If they’re significant enough, before you ever get to the full board, you’ll need to deal first with a subset of the board, its Architectural Review Committee.

This morning on the 40th floor of the city Municipal Tower downtown, that committee met with someone who isn’t even a landmark owner yet: Prospective Alki Homestead (Fir Lodge) purchaser Dennis Schilling, who, as reported here earlier this week, has to decide soon whether to go ahead with a deal to buy the 111-year-old log structure, vacant since an electrical fire six years ago. He made it clear he is seeking reassurance that he won’t be buying himself a long-drawn-out process; toward the end of the discussion, he asked flat out, “How do I get to ‘yes’?”

He didn’t get a specific answer on that, but he did get positive feedback on the part of the proposal that had to be evaluated first:

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By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

“It’s fixable, in my opinion.”

So says Dennis Schilling of the historic West Seattle landmark he’s considering buying and repairing, the Alki Homestead (originally Fir Lodge), vacant since the fire that charred its interior six years ago this month.

This Friday, Schilling takes a new repair/restoration/renovation plan to the city Landmarks Preservation Board‘s Architectural Review Committee. The meeting agenda is the first public document pointing to his involvement with the Homestead; after finding the damaged landmark on the ARC agenda for the first time in 3 1/2 years, we looked up the Department of Planning and Development files for the site and found Schilling involved.

If you can’t place his name, Schilling is the Mercer Island man who saved the Shoremont Apartments, blocks east of the Homestead, as first reported here in 2011. That classic brick building was at one point proposed for demolition and replacement with an ultramodern-style building. He bought it instead, fixed it up, and says everything’s “been great” since then.

One day while visiting Alki to go to the Shoremont, Schilling told us in an interview outside the Homestead today, he noticed the big “for sale” sign that’s been up for months. (He explains that every time he goes somewhere, he tries to “not drive home the same way twice.”) The rest was history.

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(WSB photo, taken this morning)
Thanks to Richard Hesik for spotting the listing and sending the link: Almost five years after the electrical fire that damaged and closed the historic-landmark Alki Homestead, it’s listed for sale, again. It had been on the market before the fire; a year and a half afterward, owner Tom Lin said he would put it back on the market, but no listing ever appeared. He then engaged a team of local architects to pursue a restoration plan that went before the city Landmarks Board Architectural Review Committee four times (reports are in our archive of Homestead coverage) before the project went dormant. Now, the 110-year-old former Fir Lodge, a city landmark on a 14k-square-foot lot, is listed for $1,850,000, with Paragon Real Estate Advisors‘ flyer declaring that the Homestead is “now waiting for a new owner to bring it back to life and carry on the legacy,” while also noting, “The list price does not include the cost of rehabilitation of the structure.”

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

The process of discussing with the city how to restore/reconstruct the fire-ravaged landmark Alki Homestead/Fir Lodge is so far as painstaking as the actual project itself eventually may be.

This morning, in their fourth informal appearance before the city Landmarks Preservation Board’s Architectural Review Committee downtown, Alloy Design Group architects Mark Haizlip and Greg Squires presented the three options they’re discussing.

All three options assume that the Homestead’s roof and foundation must be replaced – though committee members indicated they’re not all convinced about the former.

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For the first time in more than three months, the proposal to restore/reconstruct the historic-landmark Alki Homestead (originally the Fir Lodge) will return to the city Landmarks Preservation Board‘s Architectural Review Committee next week. This will be its fourth review before the committee, which holds informal reviews with project teams – multiple times, if they request it, as has been the case here – before they take proposals to the full board for a vote. Two and a half years now have passed since the fire that ravaged the Homestead’s interior; here’s our report on the most recent review of the proposal to restore/reconstruct it for use as a restaurant/banquet facility (our full coverage archive is here). This next review is listed as a “briefing on proposed building elements condition survey”; it’s set for 9:35 am next Friday (July 29th) on the 40th floor of the Seattle Municipal Tower downtown.

(WSB photo from 1/16/2011)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

It’s come up before, and now it’s come up again:

To reopen the city-landmarked Alki Homestead (originally the Fir Lodge), will it take restoration, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or some combination of all of the above? The scope of the proposal came up this morning downtown as owner Tom Lin and his architect team from Alloy Design Group returned to the Architectural Review Committee of the city Landmarks Preservation Board for a third review, with historic-preservation advocates watching from the sidelines.

The same question arose when Lin and a different architect brought a different proposal to the committee a year and a half ago, as reported here. Back then, they were proposing adding “other uses” to the site – a bar, maybe a bed-and-breakfast – but that plan was scrapped, and the new plan is all about bringing the Homestead back as a restaurant and banquet facility.

But how can it be done, when it needs a new foundation and a new roof – and some degree of replacement inbetween? “Tricky” is one word that was used.

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