OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Google Streetview (new tab)

Overview

The Edith Macefield House became a lightning rod for those who believed in historic preservation and deliberate growth, and those who held to laissez-faire development. For those sympathetic to corporate development and achieving the land's "highest best use," Macefield was a fool who turned down $1.1 million from an overly generous developer. For those who doubt the basic principle of "highest best use," Macefield stood out as a hero, a thorn in the flesh of corporate power and a protector of the usable past. The Macefield story became a national one, with the New York Times publishing two heavily discussed articles about it in 2009 and 2015.

Building History

Edith Macefield (d. 2008), an elderly Ballard resident in her 80s, was approached by Ledcor Construction to sell her house so that a a health club could be built on a larger parcel that would have included it. She had lived in the dwelling since 1952. Despite numerous offers, she refused Ledcor's offer, said to have been $1.1 million plus a condominium and health care costs, saying that she had no where else to go and that change was too hard at her age. The developer built his building around her house, in a stark manner, closing it in with three walls of concrete. It became an important symbol for many in Ballard who believed that developers had caused overly rapid growth in the neighborhood. Macefield, a hero to many, died 06/15/2008 at age 86 of pancreatic cancer. She willed the dwelling to Barry Martin, who worked as the construction superintendent for the project. Martin sold the building on 06/30/2009 to Greg Pinneo, a co-founder of Reach Returns, Incorporated.

In 2015, the Macefield House stood boarded up with the American IRA real estate firm indicating that it sought an owner who honored Macefield's stand. It stated in the New York Times: "After witnessing the tremendous interest in the house from around the world, the seller is more determined than ever to make sure that Edith Macefield's legacy will survive. We do not know what will happen to the house, but we can and will make sure that a place will be established where people may pay tribute to Edith Macefield." (See Kirk Johnson, "House That Wouldn't Budge (or Float Away) Faces a Last Stand," New York Times, 04/12/2015, p. 4.) Part of the popular fascination with the house was its resemblance to the cartoon house depicted in Disney's animated film, "Up." As a result of this conflation, balloons became attached to the chain-link fence surrounding the house as signs of support for Macefield's idealistic stand.

Building Notes

According to the King County Assessor, Macefield's house occupied a 1,550-square-foot lot, and contained 1,050 square feet, 700 on a first floor, and 350 on the second. Its appraised value in 2008 was $139,000. In 2015, its appraised value stood at $137,700, down from a high of $157,500 in 2011.

In 2019, a political ad Seattle City Council candidate Andrew Lewis, sponsored by the political committee of the hotel workers' union, Unite Here Local 8, used the Macefield House as its centerpiece. The ad was a brief, 15-second spot that said: "For Andrew, the people who live here are more important than cutting ribbons with developers. For Edith. For Andrew. For City Council." As noted by Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, the ad was off-target for several reasons, not the least of which was the Macefield's House was not in the city council district that would be represented by Lewis. Lewis was also not consulted by the union in the selection of the ad. (See Danny Westneat. "Edith Macefield Did Not Approve This Message," Seattle Times, 0728/2019, p. B1-B2.)

The ad did, however, underscore the fatigue some residents felt with the pace of development and money-making in Seattle that had transformed it into an unfamiliar, grid-locked, and increasingly mean-spirited environment. Long-time residents noted how quickly the Seattle public ethos had changed from civility and patience to anger and quick-to-honk freneticism. Additionally, the physical environment of the city had changed drastically, disorienting many who no longer recognized neighborhoods after developers outbid one another to erect new highrises and 5-over-1, mixed-use apartments. Construction and profit-making had changed the streetscape in an intense burst between 2012 and 2019, wiping away the deliberate work and varied aesthetic choices of previous generations, drowning inhabitants in a flood of increasingly uniform and hastily-erected towers.