In January of 2001, the Daily Journal of Commerce posted a real estate offer of sorts on its front page. The odd yellow house on the southeast corner of Denny and Harvard was for sale - if only someone could move it from its prime Capitol Hill location. Thankfully, the house did not sell, and plans for redevelopment of the site fell through. The owners called the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program a couple of months ago to see if they might have interest in developing the property.

Thankfully, they said yes. As a result, Capitol Hill retains the quirky house - which will be nominated for landmark status in the next few months - and will see many new units of affordable housing rise up on the property surrounding it. Stickney Murphy Romaine Architects, nationally renown preservation architects who specialize in affordable housing rehabilitation projects, are providing the designs. The project is still in its preliminary stages, but the house is no longer threatened with a move, or imminent demolition.

When Historic Seattle spoke with Betsy Hunter, a housing developer with CHHIP, she told us she'd always thought the Pantages House was special. So do a number of Capitol Hill residents, even without knowing its history. Below is an excerpt from the landmark nomination for the Pantages House, prepared by Philip Esser for Historic Seattle:

"The name Pantages is synonymous with theatres and entertainment on the West Coast. Alexander Pantages was the man behind the most successful chain of vaudeville theatres, and the largest independently owned movie theatres and vaudeville houses in the United States. A fierce competitor, he did much to popularize vaudeville in the U.S. His success was due in large part to pursuing and producing what audiences wanted, versus what he thought they might want. His incredible success and often sordid life is the quintessential American rags to riches story of which much has been written.

Born Pericles Pantages on the Greek island of Andros in 1876, he found his way to the West Coast of the United States. He arrived to Seattle in 1902 with $4,000 and opened the Crystal Theatre, featuring a mixed variety of live acts, the formula that would become his trademark. Known as a shrewd businessman, Pantages would often cut acts in half and speed up the silent movie projectors in order to handle crowds waiting for shows. His second theatre was the first of many to bear his name and by the time he built his first house on East Denny Way and Harvard Avenue, he had opened his third. He would go on to own or control more than seventy vaudeville theatres around the nation. His early success in Seattle was so great that by 1909, only two years after building his first house, Pantages commissioned now famous architect Arthur L. Loveless of Wilson & Loveless to design a larger and more prestigious Capitol Hill house on the southwest corner of 36th Avenue and Madison Street. Though altered, it still stands.

Little is known about the relationship between Alexander Pantages and the house he built, nor why he chose Knapp & West to design his house. The ornate style of the house is unique to the neighborhood; almost what one might expect a vaudeville theater operator to possess. It remains as the most ostentatious house by Knapp & West yet discovered. Over the years the current owner has been told stories about how Pantages used the house as quarters for his theatre performers, many of whom traveled by circuit. Given that he lived there for such a short period of time and that tax records reveal that his company owned the two houses to the east (805 and 811 East Denny), it may well be that he provided housing.

The well-known and widely discussed collaboration between Alexander Pantages and architect B. Marcus Pretica is considered very significant not only to the architectural development of Seattle, but to the evolution of theatre design in early twentieth century America. The 1914-16 Coliseum Theatre is recognized as Seattle's first movie palace and is considered significant in advancing the architectural sophistication of the downtown area. This and other theatres such as the Seattle Pantages (demolished 1965), based on Pretica's preference of classical models, led to great success and the development of many theatres on the West Coast.

After a long and often contentious life, Alexander Pantages died at his home in Los Angeles in 1936. In his obituary B. Marcus Pretica was quoted as saying that Pantages always considered Seattle his home - "He [Pantages] got his start in the theatre business here and was grateful to the city."

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