18604 104th Ave NE
Bothell, WA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Faust Ryan House (Ryan--Paris House)

Statement of Significant:

The Faust Ryan House faces south toward 186th Street and downtown Bothell from an elevated site at the northeast corner of 104th Avenue NE and NE 186th Street. When the house was built in 1923 - 1924, NE 186th Street had not been dedicated and the approximately 20-acre estate was entered by a curved drive from the south. Today, a short drive enters the property from the west and a side door has become the primary entrance to the house.

The Faust Ryan House is an excellent, intact example of the Craftsman style interpreted with popular period revival features. The house embodies the distinctive characteristics of the style including low- pitched gable roof; wide, open eaves; exposed decorative rafter ends; decorative false beams; knee brace porch supports; cottage doors and windows; polychrome brick and river rock masonry work and stucco cladding. Mediterranean Revival details including a recessed symmetrical entrance porch, the use of arches and stucco cladding further characterize the house.
Craftsman style landscape features and accessory buildings compliment the Faust Ryan House including an irregular-shaped stone pool with concrete statue of Huckleberry Finn, shingled garage and open picnic house with brick and river rock barbecue pit.
The recessed front entrance is approached across a low elliptical terrace. The entrance has a multi-paned door and sidelights and is delineated by polychrome patterned brickwork. Above the entry, the roof becomes a segmentally-arched, porch hood supported by knee braces. length arched windows enhance the symmetry of the facade and the Mediterranean Revival flavor of the house.

A large gabled dormer with triparte window rises above the entrance. There is a large shed dormer to the rear of the house and another gabled dormer to the east making the attic a useable floor. There is a shallow gable projection to the west which accommodates an impressive asymmetrical brick and river rock chimney and there are three other small stacks of brick and rock. One is built on the east side of the house and the other two rise near the center of the main mass. The whole house is clad in rough finished stucco and there are decorative brick "medallions" on the projecting gable walls. Generally, the windows are Craftsman style with multilight-over-one, double hung wooden sashes and frames. They are set high under the eaves. Floor length, multipaned arched windows are used liberally in the public areas of the house, three of them opening to tiny balconies on the north and west sides of the house. The balconies have wooden platforms with low, Chinese Chippendale-like balustrades.

Inside, the Faust Ryan House presents as a house intended for social gatherings. It has large public areas including entry parlor, dining room and living room with high coved ceiling. The living room is further characterized by the floor length arched windows and a massive polychrome brick, glazed tile and river rock fireplace and mantel. The masonry was painted white by a previous owner but photographs document the original natural colors.

The public rooms are connected by generous double and single multilight doors to match the windows. Other millwork includes molded frames and baseboards and hardwood floors.
Particularly interesting features of the interior include a large first floor bathroom with partial height gray marble walls, said by a previous owner to be Alaskan marble. There is also an interesting raised breakfast nook off the kitchen which takes advantage of the high windows.

The kitchen was completely remodeled in the early 1960s and again by the current owners who are in the process of carefully restoring the house. Originally a multiacre estate, the Faust - Ryan House is said to have included "a tennis court, stone fish pool, smokehouse, picnic house, grazing sheep, caretaker's cottage and orchard." Subdivided about 1950, the smokehouse and garage, picnic house and fish pool are intact. Though damaged by a fallen tree in a January 1993 windstorm, the garage and smokehouse, still retain sufficient integrity.

The picnic house reinforces the idea that this estate was planned for entertaining. The smokehouse and the large meat locker (in the basement of the house) are accessories to the three-sided picnic pavilion which has a brick and river rock barbecue pit and a picnic table built around a tree. Although subdivision of the Faust Ryan property has detracted from the original rural setting of the house, it retains integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.