Seattle Landmarks: Boyer Lambert House (1908)

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Address: 1617 Boyer Avenue E, Seattle. Lawyer and real estate developer John E. Boyer (1866-1961) commissioned E. W. Sankey to design a home in the Interlaken Addition of Seattle. Sankey used heavy stone, English-style half timbering, Prairie-school massing, and California Craftsman details for a very unusual home for the time. Most of the homes built for Seattle's wealthy followed various eclectic styles such as Colonial, Georgian, or Tudor. The design prefigures the lodges and park buildings of Ellsworth Storey (1879-1960) and Robert Reaman.

The house sits on a knoll on a trapezoidal lot. The interior features a one-story living room, and a two-story central portion with the dining room and bedrooms. The master bedroom has a large, tapering stone tower and two wide bands of windows. Wide, overhanging roofs emphasize the home's connection with the granite base and with the ground.

The home was named a Seattle Landmark on February 22, 1983, because of its distinctive architectural style.

Sources:
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Landmarks Preservation Board, 700 Third Avenue, 4th Floor, Seattle, Washington; Lawrence Kreisman, Made to Last: Historic Preservation in Seattle and King County, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 65.
Note: This essay was corrected on June 22, 2009.

By David Wilma, April 27, 2001

This file made possible by:
The SCHOONER Project:
The Hon. Jan Drago
Seattle City Council
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods

Boyer House, 2001
Photo by David Wilma