These days you'll pay at least $500,000 for a home in Queen Anne, but that's the going rate for a home in such a historical, close-in and panoramic area. But during the Roaring '20s, you could get a home for a song.
In April 1927, the J.L. Grandy company set out to build 230 homes on a section of the hill it called Queen Anne Park. Its offices were at 3042 10th Ave. W. An excerpt from an article of The Queen Anne News in 1927 said, "A few months ago it was an impenetrable mass of trees and underbrush.
"Today it is one of the most beautiful homesite additions in the world. The brush has been swept aside, sharp hills have been reduced to gentle rolling knolls and wide boulevards wind their way around the site."
The article went on to say homes set back buyers $5,600. The company, headed by J.L. Grandy himself, projected 75 homes completed by the end of 1927 and would spend $1.8 million on the development.
The first homebuyer was E.W. Johnson, who bought the home at 3318 Eighth Ave. West.
The Queen Anne Historical Society meets at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 27 at the McClure Middle School library at First Avenue West and West Crockett Street. The society will answer any question about the development and also about the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Helen Divjak, from the Museum of History & Industry, will present another view of the 1909 AYP Exposition location. She is a manager at Museum of History & Industry.[[In-content Ad]]
