1204 Minor Ave
Seattle, WA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Stimson-Green House (Green, Joshua, House)

Statement of Significant:

The Stimson-Green House is significant to the city of Seattle as an intact example of fashionable turn-of-the-century period revival architecture. Designed in the "Tudor" style by noted Washington architect Kirtland K. Cutter, the house was occupied, successively, by two of Seattle's most distinguished business leaders: Charles D. Stimson, for whom the house was constructed 1899-1901; and Joshua Green, the state's well-known and much-honored centenarian.
Charles D. Stimson (1857-1929) arrived in Washington the year statehood was achieved, in 1889. A native of Michigan, he and his father and brothers had settled on Puget Sound as a consequence of an extensive survey of prospects in timber throughout the country. The Stimson Land Company was organized for purposes of buying timber, and in 1890 Stimson and his brothers formed the Stimson Mill Company, of which Stimson became president in 1892 and which he headed throughout his career. Located in Ballard, the prosperous mill contributed to that community's prominence as a competitive industrial center in the years before it was annexed to Seattle. Contemporary sources indicate that Stimson was recognized as an authority on the lumber industry and was often consulted on state and federal matters relating to timberlands or lumbering. He was also widely acknowledged for his role in the up-building and development of Seattle as a center of commerce. He was president of the South Seattle Land Company 1904-1929; headed the C. D. Stimson Company from 1908, and the C. D. and F. S. Stimson Company from 1917. He was a director of the Metropolitan Building Company and the Metropolitan Bank, and was an organizer and director of the General Insurance Company of America. Stimson's many activities in the public interest included serving as a director of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909 and being active in the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. During the First World War he devoted all of his time to managing the Northwestern Division of the American Red Cross, which had jurisdiction over Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. The Stimson family left their "Tudor" house on Minor Avenue upon completion of a new home in The Highlands, an exclusive residential area on Lake Washington, for which Stimson served as president from 1908 to 1919.
Joshua Green (1869-1975), a native of Mississippi, arrived in Seattle with his parents and brother in 1886. In 1888 Green became purser on the sternwheel steamer, Henry Bailey, which plied between Tacoma and Skagit River ports via Seattle. In due course Green and fellow officers purchased their own steamer and founded the LaConner Trading and Transportation Company, which Green headed as president. By 1898 the company boasted the largest fleet of any inland steamboat operation on the Sound, with eight vessels. In 1901 the company expanded and reformed as the Puget Sound Navigation Company, with Green still at the helm. In 1906 the scope of the enterprise was further enlarged through the purchase of two, two-funnel steamships of over a thousand tons and over two hundred feet long. Green was also involved in a shipbuilding program which culminated in construction of the fastest American-built steamer traveling on Puget Sound.
Joshua Green's fortune had been made in nearly 40 years of steamboat navigation, and in 1926 he made plans to retire. Instead, during a golf match he was offered some stock in a small, failing bank. He initially refused, but several months later, after some serious "horse trading", he wrote a personal check for $200,000 and became the owner of People's Savings Bank. Later in the year the name was changed to People's Bank and Trust Company, its capital having increased from $100,000 to a half million dollars. In 1937 the company became a national bank titled People's National Bank of Washington. It is now one of the largest in the state. Green was chairman of the bank's board of directors to 1962, and was honorary board chairman until his recent demise at age of 105. His other business affilia- tions and charitable activities were numerous. He was president of the Joshua Green Corporation and the Dan Creek Placer Mines: vice chairman of the board of directors of the General America Group of Insurance Companies; a director of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railway Company, Northern Life Insurance Company, Puget Sound Power and Light Company, and Bellingham Securities Syndicate. An ardent sportsman, Green hunted game all over the world. A mountain and river in Alaska are named for him; and the Joshua Green Cup at Longacres Racetrack was established to honor Green, a pioneer stockholder in the Seattle racetrack. He was honored as Seattle's man of the century and was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities degree by Whitworth College in 1968. Upon reaching his centenary mark the following year, Green was honored by the State with an officially-declared Joshua Green Day. Green and his wife acquired the house from Stimson in 1914 and occupied the property for the rest of their lives.
Kirtland K. Cutter (1860-1939) was a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City, and pursued architectural training in London, Paris and Rome before returning to the United States to commence his practice. Cutter was supported in his student years by well-to-do parents. One of the works to his credit is Kirtland Hall, Sheffield Scientific School, which Cutter's parents donated to Yale University. Cutter had arrived in Spokane, Washington by 1889. A metropolis of the inland empire built up by activity in the nearby Coeur d'Alene gold mines of Idaho, Spokane had in that year suffered a disastrous fire which destroyed 32 developed blocks. During the re-building phase the young architect made his reputation designing lavishly-appointed residences in assorted period styles for Spokane's wealthier citizens. The commisison which established Cutter's reputation beyond regional bounds was his Idaho State Building for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. For the same exposition Warren P. Skillings