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Going Home Again

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COURTESY OF LOG HOUSE MUSEUM THEN: Apparently when the Hainsworth home on Olga Street was built in 1907 the streets were still only lines on the plat map. PAUL DORPAT NOW: This view looks southwest along 37th Avenue Southwest. It was taken a stone's throw from the Belvedere Viewpoint on Southwest Admiral Way.

LAST WEEK we featured an early view of William Hainsworth Senior's West Seattle home on 46th Avenue Southwest. True to our promise then, this week we bring you the English manor of William Jr. and Florence Hainsworth.

Florence's maiden name was Stretch, and with the Hainsworths were the other of the first two families to establish residences on the plateau — both on 46th. When Florence and William Junior's grand home was built in 1907 at the corner of Southwest Olga Street and 37th Avenue Southwest, it was a different neighborhood from that of the older homes on 46th overlooking Alki Beach. The new mansion was sited so it could look directly over Elliott Bay to the Seattle waterfront.

To visit the old homes, the couple could not at first easily follow the crow, for although there probably were plenty of crows in the Fairmount Ravine separating the neighborhoods, there was no substantial bridge over it. The Hainsworths were leaders in getting the bridge built.

When Florence's brother, Arthur, returned from the Yukon Gold Rush in 1899, he and William Jr., who'd done well in real estate, opened the Coney Island Baths, one of the first on Alki Beach.

Arthur recalls their pleasant times together in the Hainsworth mansion. "Will and my sister were great ones for entertaining, and my wife and I spent many happy times with them. They would have community sings, dances and card parties, and their tennis court and croquet field were popular. Every year they held a Fourth of July celebration for the whole community . . . It seems to me that Will Hainsworth always was involved in some civic project for the improvement of the district, and he assumed that I would work with him."

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