17602 Bothell Way Northeast
Lake Forest Park, WA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Harry Vanderbilt Wurdemann House

Statement of Significant:

Built in 1914 on a prominent site overlooking Lake Washington, the Harry Vanderbilt Wurdemann House is significantly associated with the development of the planned residential community of Lake Forest Park, and a good example of suburban architecture from the period. The house was the largest and most distinctive of the original properties in the community, specifically designed to be an architectural showplace that would set a standard for the town and serve as an advertisement for prospective residents. Located at the historic gateway to Lake Forest Park, the Wurdemann House has been a local landmark since its construction, and is the best reflection of the ideals of the founders of North Seattle's first middle class suburb.
Historical Background: In 1909, Seattle realtor (and future mayor) Ole Hanson and his colleague A.H. Reid located 1,300 acres at the north end of Lake Washington on which they sought to develop a new suburban community. At the time, North Seattle was mostly forested and only sparsely settled. The same year, a group of wealthy Seattle businessmen established a private community north of the city along Puget Sound, known as The Highlands. It was the first rural suburban enclave in the area. By December, Hanson, Reid and their investors formed the North Seattle Improvement Company to purchase, plat, and handle sales for a less exclusive community to be known as "Lake Forest Park." The goal of the promoters was to create "a residential park unequalled in size and unsurpassed in beauty by any other place in the world." Unlike The Highlands, where ownership was limited by covenants and wealth, Hanson and Reid extended the country living concept to the middle- class, creating a bedroom community where residents could live "in the country while still working in the city."
To develop their plans, the group hired Bertram Corlett, a civil engineer, who platted the community following natural contours. According to Reid, "Lake Forest Park is the only large Northwest subdivision platted entirely to contour." The developers also promised considerable natural amenities. "While the best artistic genius money can hire is in charge of development work," they promised, "the strict fiat has gone forth that all-natural beauty must be preserved, no tree will unwittingly be cut down... that the streams, springs, lakefront ... all the flora and fauna with which Nature blessed this lakeshore must not be defiled by man." In 1910, the firm hired Asahel Curtis to illustrate a brochure promoting these visual qualities.
In addition, Hanson and Reid offered for sale eight prime lots at a very low price to anyone who would build an architect- designed house according to specific requirements including a minimum size and cost. The "first eight" were to set the tone for the entire community and raise the value of the surrounding property. The Wurdemann House was the largest and most prestigious of these homes. Several owners of the "first eight," including A.H. Reid and Harry Wurdemann, had sufficient faith in this plan to build their own country estates as well as buy several additional lots on speculation.
Taking advantage of the beauty of Lake Forest Park and its stately first eight, A. H. Reid became one of the few real estate brokers in the Seattle area to use newspaper ads to sell land. By 1916, Reid was the sole developer of the community, and half page advertisements for Lake Forest Park appeared on a daily or weekly basis in Seattle newspapers. Understanding the desire of working families to own their own "estates" outside of the city, the advertisements presented the grand nature of the development along with the affordability of the lots. Although the houses that followed the first eight were primarily designed in the popular bungalow style, Lake Forest Park was unique because the relatively modest houses were located on large lots. Harry Vanderbilt Wurdemann came to the Northwest in 1880, when, as a youth he worked as an engraver and topographer with the geological survey. Due to problems with his eyes, Harry Wurdemann transferred from architecture to medical school at Columbia University (now George Washington University). He completed his education by studying abroad in London,

Paris, and Vienna for a year. After serving in the U.S. Army, and teaching at Marquette University, Wurdemann settled into a practice as a doctor of ophthalmology first in Milwaukee, then in Chicago.
In 1908 Dr. Wurdemann married May Audrey Flynn. A year later, a disastrous fire destroyed his family's home and the Wurdemanns decided to move west. The Wurdemanns purchased a four and one-half acre block in Lake Forest Park in 1912 where the first schoolhouse and real estate office sat. By 1914, their house had been built from lumber milled in Lake Forest Park by Bill Rowe. The Wurdemanns' new residence featured a spiral staircase, marble fireplace, and commanding views of the lake.
After completing the house, the Wurdemanns began work on the grounds. May Wurdemann enjoyed gardening and had a hand in the planting of rose bushes, apple trees, a cherry orchard, and a garden. The family cow wandered about the grounds among the trees. Auxiliary buildings such as a greenhouse, poultry house, boiler shed, barn shed, and gardener's cottage and carriage house also dotted the property. The Wurdemann children, Tom and Audrey, did not attend the local schools, but were instructed by tutors until they were sent to private schools in Seattle. Audrey began writing poetry soon after the Wurdemanns moved into their new home. At the age of 16, Audrey published House of Silk, a book of poems. She later received a Pulitzer Prize for Bright Ambush in 1934. Audrey married poet Joseph Auslander and lived in New York City and later Washington D.C. where her husband served as the English poetry consultant at the Library of Congress.
Dr. Wurdemann continued his medical practice in Seattle as a partner in the Harter/Shannon Clinic in the Cobb Building. He was also a prolific author of articles in medical journals and books such as Reference Handbook of Medical Science (1915). Wurdemann was a member of the Rainier Club, the Seattle Golf and Country Club, the Seattle Yacht Club, and the National Committee for Prevention of Blindness. In 1924, the Wurdemanns sold their Lake Forest Park home and moved to Seattle's Denny-Blaine district to be closer to their children in Seattle. Their Seattle residence is now part of the Bush School property.
Adolph Linden purchased the Wurdemann House in 1924. Linden had married Esther E. Anderson whose father owned the Puget Sound Savings and Loan Association. When Mr. Linden's father died, he left a large estate to the Lindens and Mr. Linden assumed the bank presidency. As a leader in the Swedish Baptist Church, Linden used his new mansion as the showplace of the 1926 church convention. Reportedly, Linden spent $100,000 for landscaping, pool, and a brick and iron fence.

Although Adolph Linden was an important figure in banking and real estate (including building the Camlin Hotel), his local prominence came from his pioneering efforts in the broadcast industry. As a founder of the American Broadcasting Company (no relation to the ABC of today), his goal was to link radio stations throughout the United States. Before its collapse in 1929, the American Broadcasting Company owned stations in Seattle, Spokane, San Francisco and nine other cities stretching from the West Coast to Chicago. Linden purchased KJR in Seattle and invested additional money to create an all-live radio station assembling an impressive staff of well-paid announcers, singers, and musicians including a dance band, a symphony orchestra and a string trio. Adolph Linden's enterprises were ambitions and expensive, and apparently paid for, in part, by money embezzled from his bank. He was convicted in 1929, and the house was sold in 1930.

Roy L. Maryatt, owner of Maryatt Electrical Laundry Company and American Linen Supply, purchased the Wurdemann House in 1930 to provide a peaceful country life for his family. Mr. Maryatt's involvement in the community included serving as the director of the district 181 School Board. Unfortunately, one of their children drowned in a wading pool on the property in 1934, and in 1935 the Maryatts sold their home to Walter Brown, owner of the railroad which ran from Renton to Seattle via Rainier Avenue. This transaction between Maryatt and Brown was described in 1935 newspapers as "one of the largest property transactions of the year involving one of the Seattle area's more splendid homes." Following the short occupancy of Walter Brown and his family, the Wurdemann House was sold to John E. Clancy, a tavern owner and former "boss" of the first ward. John Clancy was reportedly gregarious, debonair, and generous. In a 1919 Shoreline Journal interview, Lake Forest Park resident Mabel Gwinn responded to an inquiry about Clancy saying "... it was a very profitable business." In 1943 the Clancys sold the property to Mrs. True Uncaphor, owner of the Sun Life Insurance Company, who needed a large house for her three adopted children. Mrs. Uncaphor sold the house two years later in 1945.

Arie and Wilhemina Vanderspek has visited the Wurdemann House in 1924 and considered purchasing it from Harry Wurdemann. Arie Vanderspek, consul for the Netherlands and international banker, purchased the building in 1945 because, according to his daughter Geraldine Kangsley, "It was the people, that wonderful community to live in," and because Mr. Vanderspek's sister required a quiet place to recuperate. The Vanderspeks opened their home to foreign dignitaries and guests as well as to their neighbors. Two strictly observed rituals in the Vanderspek home were the 11 a.m. coffee hours and 4 p.m. tea times when many neighbors dropped in to enjoy the mansion and its friendly owners. The Vanderspek's son John, botanist, grew spectacular raspberries in the garden, and begonias, palms and orchids in the greenhouse. John and his wife Pam lived in the gardener's cottage for two years. The Vanderspeks sold the house in 1959. In the 1970s and 1980s, the house passed between several owners, and was rehabilitated in 1989 and 1990.
Architectural Significance: The Wurdemann House is a locally significant example of suburban residential architecture, developed in a community that self-consciously promoted a suburban ideal. Although other houses in Lake Forest Park were built in the bungalow idiom, the Wurdemann House reflected the Mediterranean style frequently adopted in country homes outside large metropolitan areas in the years before World War I. As employed in the Wurdemann House, the style combines sensitivity to its rural setting through the use of ample French doors, balconies and porches, with a formal symmetry and grand scale. As the largest and most elaborate of the "first eight" houses in Lake Forest Park, the Wurdemann House became the centerpiece of this residential community and set a tone which developers hoped other residents would follow.