The former location of a defunct nursing home on the edge of Kiwanis Ravine just off 36th Avenue West has been transformed into a luxury housing development called Herons Ridge.
Five of the nine homes planned for the location went up for sale in February, and with prices ranging from $850,000 to $1.3 million, the development is the Magnolia equivalent of the Bellevue-based "Street of Dreams" housing projects.
Except this is a Technicolor version.
One of the Colonial-style homes is purple, another is bright yellow, there's one that's a russet color, one is olive-colored, and one model is sky blue. The colors were chosen from a historical pallet of Miller Paints, explained Cass Stewart, one of three Windermere real-estate agents marketing the homes.
"I think it's an advantage because it's different," he said of the color scheme, noting that purple is actually called mulberry in the Miller Paint lexicon. "It's certainly an attention-getter."
The project itself also attracted quite a bit of attention when it was first proposed a few years ago, said developer Donald Dahn from Landmark Homes of Seattle.
Before it became a nursing home, the existing 1930s-era building on the site was a children's hospital, and there were calls to declare it a historic building when the housing development was first proposed, he remembered.
"It was listed as a work of an architect from the University of Washington," Dahn said. But efforts to give the building landmark status failed, he noted. "It didn't qualify."
Further complicating plans for the development was the existence of a rookery of great blue herons in Kiwanis Ravine, which meant that no loud, exterior construction work could take place during the birds' nesting season between February 1 and May 15. "We lived with it," Dahn said of the restriction.
Conceding the delay may have cost Landmark Homes some money, Dahn was sympathetic to the concerns over the herons, a skittish bird that is easily spooked during nesting season. "I was an Eagle Scout," he explained. "I'm conservation-oriented and care about ecology and the outdoors."
That was one reason why the development spared a grove of trees in the middle of the site, he said. Eagles nest in the trees, and they stuck around after construction began, Dahn added. "They do come to watch us from time to time, two of them."
Builders are still working on the interiors of the five homes and should be finished within the next six weeks, he said. "The other (four homes of nine) can't start, of course, until the 15th of May," Dahn said of the end of nesting season for the herons. It will probably take only six or seven months to complete those houses, he added.
The homes - which feature historical-sounding names such as "The Dover," "The Hampshire" and "The Amherst" - include luxurious touches like hardwood cabinets, granite countertops, two-headed showers, soaking tubs and "the most sophisticated waterproofing system currently available for single-family housing," according to promotional literature.
A selling point for the three- and four-bedroom Herons Ridge homes is their location near the herons and Discovery Park, along with views of the Ship Canal and Shilshole Bay, Dahn said.
Called "The Providence," the yellow house at Herons Ridge lists for $1,075,000 and is furnished. Having the place furnished is called "staging," said Stewart from Windermere.
"It helps people visualize how the rooms will look," Dahn explained, adding that the furniture will be moved to an empty home when The Providence is sold.
There is no other development like Herons Ridge in Seattle and certainly not in Magnolia, Stewart said. "The premier market has been a little slow, but things are picking up," he said of a high-end housing market.
In fact, "The Dover," which listed for $949,000, sold 10 days before the grand opening of the development at the end of February, he said, and there was a steady stream of would-be homeowners touring the houses last Friday afternoon when Dahn and Stewart were interviewed for this story.
The interest is reflected countywide. Sales of homes costing $1 million and more in King County have shown a marked increase in the past six months, compared with the same period a year ago, said Cheri Brennan from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
There were 246 sales in the county of $1-million-and-up homes in the last six months, compared with 173 similar sales in the same period last year, she said.
Mortgage rates are still low, Stewart also noted. "They can be more affordable than you would think," he said of the Herons Ridge homes.
Of course, affordable is a relative term. Assuming a buyer came up with a 10-percent down payment for a $1 million home and opted for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, monthly payments right now would be $5,040, said Bridget Barrington, manager of the Bank of America branch in Magnolia Village.
For more information about Herons Ridge, call Windermere at 725-7255, or check the Web site at www.heronsridge.net.[[In-content Ad]]
