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Now & Then By Paul Dorpat

Big Steps Toward A Grand Plan

REACHING HERE to a bed of tulips, the ivy once hung like a festoon on the sculpted conclusion of the Dose Terrace stairway where it joins Lake Washington Boulevard. It is near the margin where Colman Park to the north touches Mount Baker Park to the south.

John Olmsted — of the Olmsted Brothers landscaping firm that in the early 20th century designed much of Seattle's parks, including Colman and Mount Baker — persuaded Charles Dose to donate this part of his 1906 Lake Washington Addition to the building of a namesake stairway that would lead from the developer's modest (about 50 lots) addition to the grand shoreline drive that Olmsted had planned for the city.

Dose's much larger "city beautiful" neighbor to the south, the Mount Baker Park Addition, also joined the plan and contributed parts of that upscale neighborhood to the Olmsted scheme, contingent on the city agreeing to develop and maintain them, which it did.

Near 31st Street, Dose set up a real-estate office that was about the size of a dining room. But with its sturdy columns, covered porch and front steps as wide as the office, it appeared like a small temple to real-estate sales. That the selling did not at first go so well was influenced in part by the 1907 recession and the lack of trolley service closer than Rainier Boulevard.

While waiting for sales and the trolley, Charles Dose could enjoy his steps, which begin at the top with "Dose Terrace" inlaid in brass on the first step, and end here. From this slightly elevated platform one can still admire what the park commissioner's illustrated 1909 report describes as a "lake shore boulevard and pathway of which Seattle or any city in the country could justly feel proud."

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.