December 29, 2022

Another church property goes on block

Photo via Sotheby’s International Realty [enlarge]

Looking west, most of the 1.7 acres behind the mansion is bare and suitable for subdivision.

This time the future buyer will be of a residential nature, unless there's first a subdivision by a luxury homebuilder. The church-owned property in question, at 6601 N.E. Windermere Road, went on the market earlier this month. Sotheby's International Realty listed the former Rolland H. Denny mansion for $7 million.

Christopher Judd is the broker for the Unification Church, which acquired the 1.7-acre Windermere property in 1974. A Seattle Times account from 2008 says the price was then $175,000. (Adjusted for inflation, that's about $1 million today.) That was long after the family, from its initial 50 acres, had subdivided and sold off many parcels — including those below that were created by the Mountlake Cut and lowering of Lake Washington in 1916.

The mansion may or may not be a tear-down. It was built in 1907 for Rolland Denny (1851 – 1939), a son of city founder Arthur Denny. His son dubbed the Spanish-mission-revival mansion Lochkelden; that's a portmanteau of loch (lake), Denny and Kellogg — the surname of his wife.

The three-story, 7,700-square-foot house was designed by Bebb & Mendel, the architects behind the Frye Hotel, University Heights Center and many other commercial and residential buildings in the early 20th century, some of them since landmarked. The Denny mansion is not, and if the church obtains a demolition permit before selling, irate neighbors won't be able to prevent its destruction. (The church was recently cited by the city for illegal tree removal.)

Even before the '74 church sale, neighborhood kids who ran heedlessly from yard to yard were warned by parents to stay off the Denny property, which of course made it irresistible for trespassing, gawking and blackberry picking. Even then, the mansion was dilapidated and poorly maintained. The allure was even greater with the subsequent imaginary danger of being kidnapped into a cult.

But the mansion has a commanding position, high on the bluff, looking east over the lake. And most of the property to the west is bare, where the old carriage house burned down in 2007.