Monday, April 6, 2009

The Parker-Ferson Residence revisited


Isn't it amazing to see how a residential area changes in just one hundred years?

The black and white picture is from 1913, showing the Parker-Ferson residence on the right. It is a large Neoclassical Revival house built 1909, just South from the Volunteer Park Water Tower in Capitol Hill. I took the second one yesterday, between the security bars at the top of the Water Tower. It is interesting to see how this beautifully green area with wonderful old trees was so bare just a hundred years ago; the temperate climate of Pacific Northwest really does to amazing things with plants here. Just look at the Douglas fir saplings at the bottom of the first, old picture: it is one of them, now almost hiding the large house from sight.
K
First picture from Classic Houses of Seattle - High Style to Vernacular by Caroline T. Swolpe (2005), from Museum of History and Industry, Pemco Webster and Stevens Collection. Note the horse looking at the house in the lower right corner - compared with all the cars in the second...

3 comments:

Karen said...

Wow, that's really something! I guess they didn't mess around when they were building those mansions, leveled everything and started over with the plants. Hey, those are original parking strips you can see in the photo! Too bad they're still boring old grass... I love that water tower, it's fun to climb up and look down on the city. If you ever go to San Francisco, you can do the same thing (without paying Museum admission) at the DeYoung in Golden Gate Park - great views from up there!

Utblickaren said...

Är själv överförtjust i att se bilder från förr och nu. Det är fascinerande att se hur ett område har förändrats och utvecklats över tid. De uppväxta träden får husen att se mer småskaliga ut. På bilden ifrån 1913 får den "kala" omgivningen husen att se mer pampiga ut på något sätt.
/U

The Intercontinental Gardener said...

Karen, I wonder what they had said about somebody gardening on those parking strips... :-) Amazing though, I thought that erasing all plants from building sites was a new idea, but it does not seem so.

Utblickaren, det är verkligen härligt med dessa gamla bilder, de ger så mycket perspektiv. Och visst ger träden perspektiv och skala till allt, nu sitter alla fina hus så fint i landskapet och man skulle inte ana att de inte var där från början. Det växer så snabbt här i Seattle!