Located in the First Hill neighborhood, the Mansion serves as a venue for both private event rentals and public community programs. Over a century old, the Stimson-Green Mansion, located in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood, stands as a memorial to Seattle’s thriving lumber, trading, and transport industries of the late 19th to early 20th century as well as the significant individuals that built and inhabited the house. Stimson, a prominent timber and real estate businessman, along with his wife Harriet, the Mansion was designed by the Spokane architect Kirtland Cutter. Dominating the corner of Seneca Street and Minor Avenue, the Mansion was built to impress and could easily hold its own next to First Hill’s most opulent homes of the period. Completed in 1901, the Mansion reflected the architect’s aptitude for incorporating several different architectural styles – considered “eclectic architecture” – employing English Tudor Revival, Moorish, Neoclassical, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance to create something truly impressive. Eclectic architecture allowed a person to experience architectural history simply by moving from room to room instead of travelling abroad to tour castles and grand estates of Europe. The Mansion’s exterior half-timber construction, wooden gables and pointed arches are stylistically English Tudor Revival, but the interior features many different architectural styles. At the time, it took $30,000 to build the 14,000 square-foot house and another $16,000 to furnish and decorate the interior
Today, the Stimson-Green Mansion retains much of its original interior décor, including exquisite hand-painted details, fine woodwork, and imported tiles. The Mansion, once home to two of Seattle’s most influential families, the Stimsons and the Greens, is an important landmark that is recognized locally and nationally. The property was listed on the State and National Registers in 1976, and gained City of Seattle landmark status in 1977. It’s one of Seattle’s few remaining grand residential structures of the period, and one of the city’s most impressive examples of eclectic architecture. Mansion Timeline
1899 – Commissioned by Charles D. Stimson
1901 – Completed (Architect Kirtland Cutter)
1914 – Traded to the Frinks for a downtown property
1915 – Sold to the Joshua Green family
1975 – Purchased by Historic Seattle
1976 – Listed State and National Register
1977 – Designated City of Seattle Landmark
1986 – Sold to Patsy Bullitt Collins (C.D. Stimson’s granddaughter)
2001 – Donated to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation
For a tour of the Stimson-Green Mansion, visit: http://www.preservewa.org/info/stimson-green-mansion/tours-and-rentals/
