OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Building History

The Hilltop Cooperative community located south of Bellevue occupied a promontory that featured remarkable, panoramic views of Lake Washington, Mount Rainier, the Cascades and the Olympics. The setting attracted a group of educated young professionals, many of whom worked in the visual arts. Many original inhabitants also had attended or taught at the University of Washington. Painter Walter F. Isaacs (1886-1964) and art historian Gervais Reed (d. 2007) represented the UW Department of Art, while Hilltop counted three architects, including Wendell Lovett (b. 1922, a UW Assistant Professor of Architecture), Fred Bassetti (1917-2013) and John Morse (1911-2000). They tended to be a liberal group, too, for whom the idea of cooperatively sharing amenities and some development costs appealed.

Building Notes

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) named the Walter F. Isaacs House a National Merit Award in 1953.

Gervais Reed and UW Professor of Painting Spencer Moseley (1925-1998) collaborated on a book about Isaacs's career, entitled Walter F. Isaacs, an Artist in America, 1886-1964,(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982).

PCAD id: 6418