As I was walking back to my hotel, I passed by this building and was immediately awestruck at the architectural beauty of it. I took some pictures and then noticed a plaque as I was leaving that notes it being a Registered National Historic Place. The following is taken from the NRHP Nomination Form to describe this building:
Built by pioneer developer George Kinnear in 1909, the De La Mar is a fine example
of early apartment house architecture on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill. Multiple family
dwellings have continually changed the face of this upper-income district since the
construction of the Chelsea Hotel (National Register, 1978) in 1907, but the De La Mar
stands today as an elegant tribute to the original concept of the "luxury apartment."
The building functions as an important element of the streetscape along West Olympic
Place by providing human scale and visual richness. Additionally, the De La Mar is one
of several remaining apartment hotels in Seattle built to accommodate the expected influx
of guests and visitors to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. Now a designated
City of Seattle landmark, the De La Mar demonstrates the positive impact which the
AYP had upon the city's physical development.
George Kinnear, a native of Ohio, visited the Northwest in 1874 and purchased what
is known today as the George Kinnear Addition on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill.
Four years later, in 1878, he settled in Seattle and in addition to his own real estate
interests he invested in much of the city's major commercial development and promoted
the region's growth in a number of significant ways. Kinnear led an effective public
relations campaign involving the printing and distribution throughout the country of
pamphlets describing the Northwest and Seattle, including paid advertisements in major
urban newspapers. He also promoted the building of a wagon road over Snoqualmie Pass
in 1878-1879 to improve access to the coast from east of the Cascade Mountains. In
1887, Kinnear gave the City of Seattle fourteen acres of land overlooking Puget Sound
on the southwest side of Queen Anne Hill. The land with many improvements now constitutes
Kinnear Park.
To date, the names of the architects of Kinnear's De La Mar have not come to light.
Several local architects, however, were capable of working successfully in the style.
Of particular interest are U. Grant Fay and the firm of Russell and Babcock who, in
1909, designed the Masonic Building at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in nearly
identical form and detail. Because the De La Mar was built to accommodate AYP guests,
it might be assumed that owner George Kinnear wished to emulate the formal nature of
that exposition building in his palatial guest house. U. Grant Fay, in partnership with Arthur Loveless, was also responsible for the Public Safety Building on Yesler Way
of the same period. It is built of a similar color brick and possesses rusticated
stonework, pilasters, and cornicing similar in styling to that of the De La Mar.
Among Seattle's preparations for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was the construction
of a number of multi-family hotels or apartment buildings. The south slope
of Queen Anne Hill was one neighborhood which embraced this new dwelling type, beginning
with the completion of the Chelsea in 1907, When the De La Mar was built two years later,
its character was very much in keeping with the architectural quality and prestige of
the developing Kinnear Addition, Although it was not originally the grandest apartment hotel in the area, it remains today as a virtually unaltered example of its time, and
still a desirable address. A trolley line known as the "Kinnear run" connected the
De La Mar and other plush hostelries along the city's most scenic route to the Exposition
grounds (now the University of Washington campus). The present-day overhead electric
trolley wires at the corner of Second Avenue West and West Olympic Place trace that
original route, and are another reminder of the kind of urban growth that was inspired
by the AYR.