WRITTEN BY PAUL DORPAT

COURTESY OF WASH. ST. ARCHIVE, SEATTLE BRANCH

The present owners of 4221 Linden Ave. used this photo from 1938 county tax records as a guide for restoration.

PAUL DORPAT The new owners took this snapshot, at left, of their home in 1998 before they restored it. Today, 4221 Linden Ave. is a reflection of its original grace.

When the first owner, a plasterer named Alfred Bartlett, moved into 4221 Linden Ave. in 1904, it was a modest clapboard distinguished by decorative gables with brackets, ornamental fish-scale shingles, porch columns and double-hung windows. When Heather and her husband Shawn purchased the home in 1998 it was sans everything except the clapboards, which had been hidden beneath oversized cedar shakes. Most distressing, the original windows had been replaced by aluminum ones. Heather announced, "Those windows have to go or I'm not living here."

Now, five years later, gone they are — and the siding, too.

Like many other King Country residents, McAuliffe consulted a tax photo of her home for a look at what had been destroyed or hidden since the late 1930s. She then religiously restored it.

Anyone interested in consulting the record of a house in King County can contact the Puget Sound regional branch of the Washington State Archives at 425-564-3940. Have your property-tax ID number handy.