Area's central location has sizzling appeal

By JOHN MARSHALL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

David and Gwen Twyver had no preconceived notions about the Seattle area as they searched for a home last year when their peripatetic executive lives brought them here from Dallas.

Their search took them through many upscale neighborhoods in the city and on the Eastside. When they came upon the big stone house on the edge of the Washington Park Arboretum, the Twyvers immediately knew that this -- a partially renovated historic residence on Boyer Avenue East built in 1907 for lawyer John Boyer -- was just the house for them.

Only in the months afterward did the neighborhood of Montlake began to really work its wonders on the Twyvers. They found themselves close to everything -- close to downtown Seattle, close to the University of Washington, close to the Seattle Yacht Club where they became members, close to David's then-job at a high-tech firm in Kirkland.

"It was the house that sold us, but in hindsight, we could see this was the perfect location for us. We just couldn't believe how close we were to everything," Gwen Twyver says.

With the home's nine-month renovation nearly complete, Gwen Twyver steps outside. Surveying the trees and lush vegetation surrounding their one-acre property, Twyver says with the pride of a total convert to her neighborhood: "Here we are in the middle of Seattle -- and isn't it quiet?"

The nearness to the city and to nature have long made Montlake one of Seattle's most enviable neighborhoods. Its tree-lined streets and well-tended homes exude a tweedy prosperity, and almost every spot in Montlake is only moments away from parkland or a bike trail or the lakeshore.

But what was once considered an enclave of University of Washington professors and their families has suddenly become one of the truly incendiary spots in the hot Seattle real estate market, a place where frazzled real estate agents search desperately for houses about to come on the market and where those that do are sold within days to bidders often willing to pay more than the asking price. "It's gotten a little tense," concedes realtor Liz Talley.

Longtime Montlake residents refer to the escalating prices of neighborhood homes with words like "unbelievable" and "ridiculous." The prices have gone so high -- more than $250,000 for a bare-bones, two-bedroom, bungalow fixer-upper -- that Montlake's unofficial status as the prime UW professor enclave is seriously imperiled, if not already extinct. "I couldn't possibly have thought of living in Montlake during the last 10 years on an English professor's salary if I didn't already own my home there," says Eugene Smith, a retired UW English professor.

The reason, in part, is people like the Twyvers, who have at least one career tied to the well-paying, high-tech companies on the Eastside. This is a new and ironic twist in Montlake history. The neighborhood's longtime Achilles' heel -- the noisy and heavily traveled state Route 520 -- has recently been transformed into one of its major selling points to would-be Montlake residents. Route 520, they covetously note, provides easy access to the Eastside.

This influx of high-tech newcomers has prompted some longtime residents to refer to today's Montlake as "Microsoft West." They watch in wonder every time a "For Sale" sign comes down, and it is almost inevitably replaced by a Dumpster and a battalion of construction workers. Their mission: transform yet another Montlake charmer into something unexpectedly grand.

The trend is especially evident in the most northern portion of Montlake called "The Cut," those few blocks of most desirable homes sandwiched between the Montlake Cut and 520. A Cut home, with a lofty price tag of $785,000, sold recently in just three days.

Yet even the most well-heeled newcomers with jobs on the Eastside still seem to succumb to the mindset that has marked Montlake residents for decades: a fierce protectiveness about their neighborhood that leads to bitter civic battles over any major changes.

Continued:

• Cozy neighborhood sparkles in the spring