RIP, 3726 Beach Drive
Mentioned the impending demolition yesterday … went by a few minutes ago and the teardown was in full swing. Always amazing to see how little time it takes to bring down these old wood-frame homes (this one was built in 1918). A few more teardown pix, and our rambling digression:
Not that we’re saying all these old wood-frame homes should just be preserved and allowed to rot. But the first photo of the next 4 makes us a little misty – that was somebody’s room once. You see, we live in a “warbox” which would also take about 15 minutes to tear down. The first year we lived in our house, one of its builder’s sons came by on a visit from California, found us out in the yard, and told us his story. Our house took 6 months to build, from September 1941 to March 1942, because Pearl Harbor kind of interrupted things. The builder’s son went on to tell us about he and his mom and his siblings all living in the little 2 bedroom/1 bath house while Dad was away at war. But we digress. Here are those other 3726 Beach Drive photos:
Next up, of course, townhouses. Where someone else will, of course, make new memories. And someone else will, maybe, come by to document a teardown around, say, 2048 or so.
I don’t know why these photos sicken me. I would like to see the brown house on beach drive taken away…it’s been in it’s sad abandoned state for too long.
I never knew the people or families who lived here…but I could just picture the families and memories that must have been made here in the back garden behind the white picket fence.
What’s with the bales of hay? Do they serve a purpose for the teardown? Does anyone know? Just curious.
The straw bales are probably there for use in erosion control after the demo is complete.
Well, in the 50’s, and for quite sometime later, it was owned by the Tchereson’s (sp?). It was a family unit of 2 grandparents and a grandson.
The grandson became a history teacher, and continued to live in it after their deaths. I don’t what happened to him, or when he moved out.
I am always saddened when an old house is torn down. It just seems like a part of our history goes with it.
I’m feeling cranky.
I wonder if the City of Seattle building permit office has said “no” to ANY contractors in the last three years.
I hope Mayor Greg’s house, where ever he lives in West Seattle, will be “book ended” by new townhouses or condos.
Drury
I would say the City NEVER says no – we had a darling one story brick apartment building with awesome landscaping at the corner of Seattle and California. When I saw the dreaded yellow sign, i called, emailed, called again. It was permitted for 5 townhouses. Guess what??!! They built 10 “luxury” units on a postage stamp and blocked the views of an older building (not mine). So – with all this building, are they adding another bridge or just reducing our taxes? Speaking of cranky…
We live next to a vacant lot (4228 Chilberg S.W.) that is in the design review process right now. A developer would like to build either four skinny, four-story single houses, two large-size duplexes, or a cluster of townhomes. He proposes to use an environmentally critical area (steep slope, liquefication issues) as the required open space for the project. Design review occurs tomorrow, then, perhaps, a formal application. I’d be happy to post more information if folks are interested.
We’ll be at that meeting, but it looked from the agenda as if the Chilberg property and one other were just for “administrative” review as opposed to 5020 California which is on the same agenda for public discussion. I think I know the lot you’re talking about — terraced condo building next to it?
There goes the neighborhood (kidding)…
But parking is already maxed out there, another Condo will make it even more of a challenge…
Looks as if there will be a need to turn up the parking karma a few notches soon.
It is just an administrative review, not the meeting. The lot has single-family homes on either side with the condo building one lot farther south.