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Building History

Celebrated Seattle architect Wendell Lovett (1922-2016) designed this residence for the University of Washington (UW) Mechanical Engineering Professor, Emmett E. Day, Sr., and his wife, Roxie Whistler Day (1916-2003), a Home Economics Teacher in the Seattle Public School District. (Roxie Day had a 25-year career teaching Home Economics at Cleveland, Nathan Hale, and Lincoln High Schools, becoming a popular mentor to many students.) Day served as the general contractor for the residence, and he collaborated with building contractor Everett S. Ensminger (1914-1997) and carpenter Victor E. Oder (1923-2011) to complete the house in a scant three months in 1958. The house accommodated the Days and their two children, a son, Emmett E. Day, Jr., (1948-1989) who went on to become an artist and furniture maker, and a daughter, Elaine Day LaTourelle, who trained with Lovett at the UW, and became a significant architect and teacher herself at the school. The family has lived in the house since its construction, and has remained largely in original condition, save for a northeast corner addition made by LaTourelle in 1968 which enlarged the living room and study on the first floor and workshop in the basement.

Building Notes

Lovett worked with a sloping site with the prime views facing east taking in vistas of Magnuson Park, Mount Rainier and Lake Washington. He sited the two-floor design on a hillside, so that entry into the house was gained on the west. The house stepped down the hill to the east, with living and bedrooms partaking of the panorama. A north-south skylight bisected the first floor which congregated the living and dining rooms and study toward the eastern views. Both spaces were extended by extensive glazing and through connection with outdoor living decks. The basement level contained bedrooms and a wood-working shop.

The historic preservation group, DOCOMOMO WEWA, staged an open house at the Emmett Day House on 04/09/2009.

PCAD id: 18026