From Lake Sammamish to Issaquah
Historic, homeless house moves on
Puget Power helps stave off the wrecker’s ball for landmark

This article appeared in the Seattle Times, September 25, 1986

by Jim Simon, Times East bureau

Photo by Peter Liddell / Seattle Times
Utility crews clear the way as the Thomas Alexander farmhouse moves south on East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast.

As onlookers gawked and a line of stalled motorists grumbled, the 82-year-old Alexander Farmhouse was uprooted yesterday from its original site near Lake Sammamish and moved down the road to an uncertain future.

A small army of movers and Puget Power workers spent more than two hours hauling the three-story, 60-ton, wood-frame house by truck two miles away to a temporary site outside the Henry Bacon lumber yard in Issaquah, where it will stay for the next nine months.

It is a house without a permanent home.

The Issaquah Historical Society says it hopes to turn the house into a centerpiece for a historical village the group would like to construct on the Pickering Farm site near Interstate 90.

But those plans are an unwelcome surprise to Langly Associates, the company that is developing a 138-acre business park on the Pickering Park.

“I think that’s awful presumptuous of them,” company President P. Langston Sligh said of the Historical Society’s idea, adding that he hadn’t even heard of the Alexander house, “They’ve never informed us of any plans and we aren’t interested.”

Historical Society Chairman Greg Spranger says the group is also looking at alternative permanent sites where the Alexander house could be restored as a bed-and-breakfast inn or for some other public use. Wherever the house winds up, Spranger says it will have to be put to a use where it can pay its own way.

But yesterday, Spranger was exulting in having saved the home from the wrecking ball rather than worrying about future problems.

“The feeling of seeing that house roll down the street was pretty neat,” Spranger said, “I haven’t the foggiest idea how big that thing is, but it didn’t look that big when it was sitting on the ground.”

The move, orchestrated by Lindsay Hose Moving of Seattle, cost about $14,000. Puget Power, which recently bought the Alexander farm and plans to develop 15 homes there through its real-estate subsidiary, donated the house and $4,000 in moving expenses. The company also removed power lines that were obstructing the path.

The Historical Society has 30 days to pick up the rest of the tab. Spranger said the group has collected $1,000 and plans to raise the rest during the Salmon Days festival next month in Issaquah.

A familiar landmark on the east shore of Lake Sammamish, the house was built by Thomas Alexander in 1902. Alexander was the “walking boss” for the Seattle, Lakeshore and Eastern Railroad and founded Alexander’s Resort on the lake.

Because Alexander family members have continuously lived there until recently, Spranger said, the house is in remarkably good condition. It still contains its original gingerbread detailing and intricate wainscoting throughout the interior.

This Article © 1986 Seattle Times

Back to Press Coverage