The difference between this "then" and "now" is a little more than 100 years and a little less than 100 feet. The duplex at 217 Lenora St. was part of the Denny Hill neighborhood that was razed with the hill in the early 20th century. Now the Denny Regrade block on Lenora between Second and Third avenues sits nearly 100 feet below the old street grade.
COURTESY OF HAL WILL

PAUL DORPAT

During the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s the hills of booming Seattle were quickly developed with many fanciful residences like these. Working variations on the Victorian home style then popular, Seattle builders had relatively cheap lumber and an army of Scandinavian carpenters who knew how to use a scroll saw, read a pattern book with imagination and paint these ladies with three, four or five sympathetic hues.

Between its skirt and the combed cresting and finial points on its roof this duplex is plenty expressive. With bands of fish-scale shingles and patterned trim, paneled doors, spindle work and sunburst gables above those expressive front porches, this is the type of architecture that would soon repel modernity. Consequently, very few homes like this one survive.

The likely date for this view of 217 Lenora St. is 1895, the year given on a photograph of Mayor Robert Moran's home across the street at 216 Lenora St. That scene - like this one also from the Moran collection of large glass negatives - appeared here about three months ago. "The Willard's home" is written on the negative holder.

In 1890 Lot Sabin Willard moved into this duplex on Denny Hill. Soon after this photograph was recorded and captioned, He left for a home on First Hill. Willard was a deputy county clerk and Miss May Willard - most likely his daughter - who also lived here, was a teacher at Central School.

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