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Overview

Following the death of her husband, Anglo-American pioneer, land owner and banker, Arthur Armstrong Denny in 1899, Mary Ann Boren Denny and her daughter, Margaret Denny, moved to this new Tudor Revival residence in the exclusive First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, completed in the summer of 1901. It was located on Boren Avenue, a thoroughfare named for her family.

Building History

In the book, Seattle Architecturally 1902, (Seattle: Dearborn Printing Company, 1902), the architectural firm of Bebb and Mendel was credited with designing this early Tudor Revival Style house for Mary Ann Boren Denny (1822-1910) and her daughter, Margaret Lenore Denny (1848-1915). It is probable that Charles Bebb received this commission just before partnering with Louis Mendel in early 1901. The house was extant by 07/1901, and its design probably dated from a period when Bebb practiced alone. After Arthur A. Denny's death in 1899, Mary moved into this residence with her daughter. Mary lived here until her death in 1910, and Margaret died five years later.

Historian Paul Dorpat wrote of the Mary Ann Denny House: "Addressed at 1220 Boren Ave., it rests on lots 1 and 4 of Block 116 in Denny’s Broadway Addition —the southeast corner of University Street and Boren Avenue. Arthur Denny, Margaret’s father and a Seattle patriarch, named the former street in the 1850s. He hoped to build a university—and did—in the early 1860s: the University of Washington. Boren Street was named for the family name of Mary Ann Denny and her brother Carson. Arthur and Mary Ann Denny are most often described as the “Founders of Seattle,” and their six children — younger daughter Margaret Lenora included — helped promote them as such. In 1901, two years after Arthur’s death, Mary Ann accompanied Margaret to their new First Hill home. The industrious daughter, an astute businesswoman, at the time was collecting rent from several lessees, including the Seattle Times, for the plant it was building on Denny property downtown at Second Avenue and Union Street." (See Paul Dorpat, Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine.com, "Seattle founders filled this historic First Hill home," published 07/13/2017, accessed 11/13/2020.)

Building Notes

The residence retained the picturesque massing of the Queen Anne Revival, but used a more consistent, subdued Tudor Revival stylistic vocabulary. The roof lines remained complex, having a cross-hipped form with gabled dormers on at least two sides. A deep, projecting front porch, supported by battered columns typical during the later bungalow era, sheltered entrants. The roof of the porch could be used as a balcony. Two massive brick fireplaces, prominent in upper-class residential architecture of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, stood on either side of the main entry. The residence was surrounded by a low retaining wall creating a promenade around it.

Demolition

The Mary Ann Denny House was removed c. 1926 to make way for the Marlborough House Apartments, erected in 1926-1927.

PCAD id: 18034