The Seattle Landmarks Board frequently reviews "borderline" landmarks. These are resources that are not easily classified as landmarks, based on the six standard criteria used by the Board to make its determinations. These properties are generally visually interesting and old enough to be landmarks, but may require substantive original research.

These potential landmarks are often "vernacular" built expressions that are not associated with a high-end architectural style, architect, or construction method. They may be added onto or altered in a way that expresses their history of use, but which may degrade the original building in a way that conventionally disqualifies a building from landmark status.

Borderline landmarks raise a number of important preservation issues and help explain how our city's Landmarks Board makes decisions, and their role within the city process designed to save the best of our historic resources. The deliberations surrounding not-so-obvious significant places are extremely educational and should help direct future activism and research. Unfortunately, unsuccessful landmark nominations are often forgotten soon after the decision not to designate is made.

Why should we care about borderline landmarks?

Anonymous Landmarks?

The May 7th Landmarks Preservation Board meeting provided an excellent case of a borderline landmark. The bathhouse at Ballard's Golden Gardens, built in 1929, is one of many older Seattle Parks Department properties that are now going through the landmarks process. This does not mean all of these buildings will be landmarks, but by proactively advancing these properties for landmarks consideration, the Parks Department will be better able to plan for future improvements. Other recent examples of Parks properties being reviewed for potential landmark status are the Seward Park Inn and Annex (designated at the May 7th meeting), and the Cowen Park Shelter House, which came before the board a few months ago and was not designated.

The Golden Gardens Bath House is a simple, decoratively spare brick building characterized as "introverted" by BOLA Architects, the consultant team working for the Seattle Parks Department. The Parks Department is supportive of the nomination and plan to maintain the building regardless of its landmarks status.

The building is a somewhat ordinary-looking public place, distinctive in that it is the only building on the beach, and made of brick, not wood, as many beach-related buildings often are. BOLA provided information that helped the building take on more meaning, and contributed to the Board's interest in investigating the building more before a decision is made to designate.

Lorne McConachie, Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Board noted that community feedback would have been helpful in this borderline case. The degree to which the building is "officially" visually distinctive and significant to the community is very hard to call based solely on the building itself and its history. A Seattle Parks Department representative noted that the community commented on the building's significance as a part of the department's neighborhood outreach, but these people did not show up for the meeting or write letters of support for the nomination to the Landmarks Board.

Although it was helpful to hear of general community interest, second hand information has limited impact. Direct comments or letters would have been ideal.

The Importance of Community Feedback

Seattle's public process is well known, lauded by some, reviled by others, but an integral part of the way things happen in this city. The city's landmarks board listens to public comment as a part of its deliberations concerning potential landmarks. Arguably, public comment is most important when properties are not clearly significant under the six landmarks criteria, or have alterations which could disqualify them from nomination.

This said, the quantity of public comment is less important than the quality of the information "the public" provides. Many people do not understand what the landmarks board is actually deciding and the methodology used to make their determinations. For more on the criteria, visit the Landmarks section of the City of Seattle's website. Not understanding the process and the criteria leads to frustration all around.

Ideally, public comment is well informed. This means not only knowing the process, but also knowing what is included within the specific nomination describing the resource in question. To know what's on the agenda, you'll need to contact Beth Chave, the city's landmarks coordinator either by phone: 684-0380 or by email at beth.chave@seattle.gov. To get a copy of nominations before scheduled Landmarks Board meetings, contact Beth.

When reviewing a landmark nomination, compare the statement of significance with the six criteria used to make a determination. If you feel the nomination does not include critical historical information that might support its role in a significant event, a significant historic trend, or one of the other criteria, put your additional information in writing.

If you don't feel as if you're qualified to provide the right information, or want to know more about how you can build an argument, contact Historic Seattle. With the help of the city's landmarks office and local historical societies, we are developing online content and workshops that will help demystify landmark nomination preparation.

The Role of Research

Making a case for a building's significance requires research, regardless of how important a property appears. Research supporting a nomination for a resource like the Space Needle or a high style building like Smith Tower is different than research supporting a modest property like the Belltown Cottages. Making the case for a building which is not clearly significant, but might be, often requires original research, and great awareness of existing specialized research which has not been published.

It is much easier to discredit the significance of a modest, vernacular expression like the cottages, than an emphatic built statement like the Space Needle. If everyday buildings, such as older houses and neighborhood commercial buildings are to be protected by the landmarks ordinance, the Landmarks Board needs corroborating evidence that the property under review is a significant example of its kind. The neighborhood inventory project currently underway will help with this, but much more research on specific building types and historic landscape features would vastly contribute to the protection of smaller buildings.

This is particularly true of specific housing types, industrial buildings, and neighborhood commercial buildings.

When the Landmarks Preservation Board reviews a single building, like the Golden Gardens Bath House, determining significance is aided by understanding clearly how this particular resource measures up against other city bathhouses. Often, the Board will request more information about other buildings of the same type or period to identify the uniqueness and relative integrity of the property in question.

Standing United or Falling Divided?

Oftentimes, a vernacular, borderline building takes on more meaning and significance if its larger built context is considered, documented, and a part of the landmark nomination. For instance, a single, relatively modest house built in 1910, with slight alterations would be an unlikely candidate for singular landmark status, but might very well be "contributing" to the significance of its neighborhood context should the entire neighborhood be nominated as a district.

Buildings that contribute to the significance of a district nomination must be able to communicate an aspect of significance called out in the nomination. If the significance of a neighborhood is linked to a history of economic diversity, like the Harvard Belmont district, smaller single family houses would be just a significant as a high style mansion. Both contribute to an understanding of the whole.

Though Seattle has few official historic districts, a number of neighborhoods or portions of neighborhoods have a great degree of "integrity" and historic significance. District designation could easily fit in with a number of neighborhood plans that point to "maintaining character" as a primary objective.

Thematic inventories, like a comprehensive report on all Olmsted Brothers designed parks and their buildings, are helpful for similar reasons.

Integrity

The Seattle Landmarks Board has to be discriminating. Nominating and designating every interesting older building in the city would undermine the value of the landmarks program and create an unreasonable burden for all involved. Landmarks must be able to convey their significance, which often means that alterations and extensive additions disqualify properties from nomination. Most older buildings have undergone some degree of alteration to maintain their use over time. Buildings that survive decades of continuous use without alteration are relatively rare, and more likely to be landmarks should they be nominated.

Since 1929 when it was built, the Golden Gardens Bath House has undergone a few changes to accommodate the park users' needs. These alterations were utilitarian and inexpensive solutions and arguably negatively impact the "integrity" of the building. The degree to which the alterations decrease a building's ability to convey its significance is a common point of discussion at Landmarks Board meetings.

Class Distinctions

Many of Seattle's landmarks are high-style architecture, houses built for our wealthy residents, or large, architect-designed commercial buildings. Some Seattle landmarks reflect the city's diverse economic, social and racial heritage, but require strong and compelling arguments (in the form of solid, comprehensive research) to achieve landmark status. Vernacular expressions and class distinctions go hand in hand - when buildings are modest, architectural expression generally reflects the economics of the owner or tenant and are, as a result, small and ornamentally spare.

Identifying potential historic districts which communicate the history of low to middling incomes and actually designating these districts is more complex than documenting and regulating conventional historic districts. Often, these areas continue to house and serve lower-income communities. The integrity of a series of century old houses may have been preserved because owners could not afford improvements. Sometimes economic necessity precipitated alterations that detract from a building's historic integrity.

Documenting and researching vernacular buildings does not necessarily lead to district designation in all cases. Understanding the value of built resources provides the foundation for informed planning, whether or not a building or group of buildings are official landmarks.

In the case of the Golden Gardens Bath House, the property owner plans to rehabilitate the building and extend its life, aware that the community has attached special meaning to the building even if it is not protected by landmark regulation. In other cases, borderline buildings do not make the cut, and will be demolished to make way for new developments.

Sometimes, the best preservationists can do is document and research vernacular buildings. Doing so means that more older buildings will have a better chance of achieving landmark status in the future.

View last month's Pending Landmarks article

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