Sketched March 12 and 17, 2015
Welcome to the Egan House, the latest addition to my list of delightfully weird Seattle.
The $2,300 month-to-month rental includes unreachable built-in shelves high on the wall and a door-to-nowhere on the second floor. More oddities: a cantilevered roof over the entrance, a birdhouse crowning the triangular facade and an original Sears kitchen from the ’50s.
Built in 1958 and named after its original owner, retired Admiral Willard Egan, the strange, wedge-shaped residence sits at the bottom of a steep slope on the western edge of Capitol Hill. Some past owners considered it impractical and thought about demolishing it, but the property is now a historical landmark. The building belongs to Historic Seattle, a nonprofit that has maintained it as a single-family rental since 2003, and the six-acre greenbelt where it stands is owned by the Seattle Parks Department.
Current tenant Alaa Mendili, a 31-year-old interactive designer transplanted from Montreal, has furnished the 1,200-square-foot “dream bachelor pad” carefully to match the home’s modernist style. “I feel very lucky to live here,” he said. “Not everyday you get to live in a triangle.”
Originally published in The Seattle Times on March 20, 2015.