2540 Shoreland Dr S
Seattle, WA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Jesse C. Bowles House

Statement of Significant:

The Jesse C. Bowles House was built for the scion of a regionally prominent family whose enterprises included shipbuilding, manufacturing, real estate, insurance, and public affairs. Inspired by the Tudor tradition, the period revival design is a noteworthy example of the residential work of the highly respected local architect Arthur L. Loveless at the prime of his career. Constructed in 1925 amid spacious landscaped grounds, the three-story brick residence is one of the largest and most imposing of the many distinctive properties in the Mt. Baker neighborhood, a planned residential community that was established in the early years of the 20th century and developed during the next three decades.

Members of the Bowles family were pioneers in the territorial days of Washington and Oregon. Leaving their home in Missouri, they, like many others from the Midwestern and eastern states, followed the Oregon Trail to Portland in the mid-19th century. Jesse T. Bowles, a farmer, served in the territorial legislature of Washington in the 1860s and was active in public affairs in Vancouver, where his son, Charles, was born in 1864. Charles attended the University of Oregon and practiced law in Portland and Vancouver during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1892 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Clark County.
After the turn of the century, Charles moved to Seattle and, with his brother, founded the Bowles Company, wholesalers of plumbing and steam fitting supplies. He also entered into a partnership to establish a shipbuilding company on Elliott Bay. His greatest achievement in this industry, however, came when he took charge of the Columbia River Shipbuilding Corporation in Portland, a remarkably productive firm that delivered two ships a month to the federal government during the First World War years. In addition, the Bowles brothers founded the Northwest Steel Company, which also became an important industry in Portland.
From the late 1890s to the 1920s, the Bowles family divided their time and business activities between Seattle and the Portland/Vancouver area. Charles' eldest son, Jesse C. Bowles, was born in Portland in 1890 but spent his adolescent years in Seattle. At this time the family lived in a large eclectic house in the Mt. Baker neighborhood. Jesse attended Harvard University and, after his graduation in 1912, returned to Seattle to work in his father's businesses. He married in 1917 and with his bride resided for a few years in Portland when his parents settled there permanently. Returning to Seattle in the early 1920s, Jesse became president of the Bowles Company, which his father had founded. also, president of the Northwest Envelope Company and the Bowles Realty Company and had interests in downtown commercial buildings and an insurance business.

When Jesse and his family returned to live in Seattle, he naturally was drawn to the Mt. Baker neighborhood where he had spent his formative years. His father had been active in the community and had been a member of the Mt. Baker Improvement Club, which was established in 1909. Various additions in the area had been planted in the early years of the 20th century. The Hunter Tract Improvement Company, developers of the Mt. Baker Park Addition, had engaged the Olmsted Brothers to provide a plan for their intended exclusive, upper-income residential enclave. Expanding on the park and boulevard system that they had already created for the city--which, in this area, included Lake Washington Boulevard, Lake Park Drive, Mt. Baker Boulevard and Park, and Colman Park--the Olmsteds planned an environmentally conscious residential community. Rejecting the rigid grid pattern, so ubiquitous in this young western city in spite of its varied terrain, the Olmsteds created pleasant curving streets following the natural topography, providing marvelous view sites especially on the eastern slopes of the north-south ridge that rises between Mt. Baker Park and the Lake Washington shore. By 1910 the area had been success- fully promoted as an attractive suburb of better residences with an accompanying small commercial center. Convenient access was provided by a streetcar line that ran down 31st Avenue and that was later extended to the median strip on Hunter Boulevard. Schools were established, the Mt. Baker Improvement Club flourished, and the area grew solidly until the lean years of the 1930s Depression.
Arthur L. Loveless (1873-1971), a prominent local architect noted for his residential work, was at the prime of his career when he designed the Bowles House. Trained at Columbia University--though he was unable to complete his studies there owing to lack of funds--Loveless worked briefly for the firm of Delano and Roberts before moving to Seattle about 1907 at the urging of his married sister, who had settled there. He found work with Clayton D. Wilson and quickly rose to the position of chief draftsman. Later (1913-14), he formed a brief partnership with Daniel R. Huntington, which ended when Huntington was appointed city architect. Thereafter, Loveless was in sole charge of his own office, although in the late years of his practice his own chief draftsman, Lester Fey, became his partner.
Although Loveless did some commercial and institutional work, most of his practice was devoted to residential designs, mainly single-family homes, but including several fraternity and sorority houses near the University of Washington campus. Some of his early commissions resulted in homes of modest scale, utilizing the predominant local building material of wood with cedar shingle siding and Craftsman details. More substantial residences of brick and imitation half-timbering showed the influence of Richard Norman Shaw, and stuccoes variations carry intimations of C.F.A. Voysey. In keeping with the versatility of period revival architects of the 1920s, Loveless also produced some handsome designs in the colonial style (e.g., the F. Arnold Polson House in Hoquiam, Washington; 1923; National Register). The finest work of his mature years, however, is characterized by Tudor features, dictated either by the predictions of the architect or by the tastes of his clients--or, more likely, by the sympathetic merging of the two. Three Seattle houses are noteworthy examples of this idiom: the Jesse Bowles House in the Mt. Baker neighborhood (1925), the Darrah Corbet House in Denny Blaine (1926), and the Henry Field House in Windermere (1930).

The Bowles House, a picturesque English manor adapted for 20th century American living, reflects Loveless attitude toward the use of period revival styles. While borrowing the basic vocabulary of a historic building tradition he provides nuances of his own creation and purposefully takes full advantage of the special features of the site. Large window areas allow complete enjoyment of the lake and mountain view, and many openings provide easy access to terraces and gardens. These features, combined with a practical floor plan and carefully wrought details and finishes, characterize a house that embodies the architect's philosophy of adapting a historic prototype rather than slavishly imitating it.