AKA: Baroness Apartments, First Hill, Seattle, WA

Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses - apartment houses; built works - dwellings -public accommodations - hotels

Designers: Schack and Young, Architects and Engineers (firm); James Hansen Schack Sr. (architect); Arrigo Mazzucato Young (civil engineer/mechanical engineer)

Dates: constructed 1930-1931

6 stories, total floor area: 35,770 sq. ft.

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1005 Spring Street
First Hill, Seattle, WA 98104-1235

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According to historian David A. Rash, the Art Deco Baroness Apartments was "...one of Schack and Young's last executed works." (See David A. Rash, "Schack, Young and Myers," in Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, Shaping Seattle Architecture, [Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994], p. 161.) The partnership of Ludwig and Stark and John Armin, originally commissioned Schack and Young to erect the apartment hotel, and they owned it from c. 1930-1938. Since 06/01/2006, 1005 Spring Street LLC (a surrogate for the Virginia Mason Medical Center) owned the building, and used it as a residential hotel. The City of Seattle stated of the building: "It was originally constructed as an apartment hotel, with thirty apartment units and thirty residential hotel suites with a dining room on the ground floor. It is particularly distinctive for its restrained and sophisticated Art Deco ornamentation, which continues the tradition of elegant living on First Hill. In the 1880s-90s, First Hill, with views and proximity to downtown, developed as the premier residential neighborhood, with the city's finest mansions. However, by the early 20th Century, apartment buildings and residential hotels, many quite luxurious, began appearing. It was not surprising that, during the 1920s apartment building boom, the city’s most elegant buildings were constructed here, confirming that this was still a desirable address. The building is now devoted to housing families and recovering patients of nearby hospitals." (See "Historical Sites Summary for 1005 Spring ST / Parcel ID 8590901030,"Accessed 07/11/2012.)

In 2010, the 6-story, reinforced concrete Baroness Apartments had 35,770 gross square feet, 26,200 net; the building had 59 units, each approximately 406 square feet in size. It occupied a 7,200-square-foot (0.17-acre) lot. At this time, it had an assessed tax value of $4,113,200. When the Baroness went up for City of Seattle Landmark nomination in 07/2009, the Virginia Mason Medical Center, also submitted two other of its properties for consideration, the Chasselton Apartments (1925) and the Rhododendron Apartments/Inn (1928) at Virginia Mason. Tel: 206.624.0787 (2012).

Owners of the Baroness Apartments appeared before the Landmarks Preservation Board of the City of Seattle on 08/18/2010 to discuss plans for a new entrance canopy on the landmarked building.