You might say that I was startled to learn that beadboard, painted and unpainted, appears throughout our Queen Anne neighborhoods on pre-World War II houses.  But my failure is worse.  As a recent stroll down the north side of Queen Anne to Fremont revealed, it isn’t just beadboard.  I’ve simply never paid much attention to unpainted porch soffits, and they are everywhere.  Unpainted soffits of beadboard, knotty pine, ash and other woods appear on a multitude of traditional and modern neighborhood buildings.  Faced with a revelation a neglect of this magnitude, Captain Haddock, the belligerent pal of the Belgian comic strip hero Tintin, would surely have proclaimed, “Suffering Soffits!”

To begin with, a soffit is essentially the underside of architectural features such as porches, eaves and even arches.  In a wooden building, a soffit protects rafters from the weather, birds, wasp nests, and other unwanted intruders from below — just as wooden shakes or asphalt shingles protect them from above.  Where historic plaster and lath or modern-day drywall form ceilings inside buildings, soffits do it on the outside.

According to a recently updated article in the Old House Journal, “Behind the Scenes with Beadboard,” by John Leeke, beadboard flourished in the United States between 1880 and the 1930s.  It appears as a wall covering called wainscoting and on the soffit of porches.  When it appears as a soffit it also sports a fancy middle French name plancier.  Pronounced plan seer, the word means soffit.  Digging into my now rusty knowledge of French philology, I think the word meant ‘board-like,’ or (no surprise) ‘plank-like.’   In modern French, a planche is a board or a plank; of that, I am sure!

These days you can buy beadboard at Home Depot in 4’ by 8’ sheets, but I think of the beadboard on old houses on Queen Anne as upside-down flooring.  That’s because they are narrow 3- or 4-inch boards which are edge-matched or tongue-in-groove.  Nails tacked through the tongue are hidden from view.  The installed boards show 2 ¼ or 3 ¼ inches of wood because the hidden tongues measure about ¾ inch.  According to Leeke, the boards ranged in thickness from ¾ inch to as thin as ⅜ inch.

                                                             Above:  a great unpainted porch soffit on 2nd Ave. N.

It comes as no surprise that the most distinctive feature of beadboard is the half round bead (!) along which runs a quirk or deep recess.  All that busyness happens along the top of the groove and serves to hide the seam between the two planks.  Beadboard can be painted, oiled, varnished or even treated with specialized coverings such as linseed, teak or tung oil.  Polyurethane, which has a plasticky look and feel, is often used, even though it is sure to peel off in time.

On my Craftsman Bungalow on First Ave. N., the soffits are painted.

Without doing a lot of delicate scraping and paint removal that I am unwilling to do, I can’t be sure they were left bare in 1907.  Nearly all the soffits down the hill are edge-matched (tongue in groove) beadboard.  There are a fair number of unpainted porch soffits on Second Ave. N. below Queen Anne Drive.  I think they look great, but in my many strolls around the neighborhood straining my neck to observe every soffit, I find that most of them are painted.

That said, you might be stunned to learn that I have become a great fan of varnished or oiled soffits.  I haven’t figured out why people went to the trouble unless it was simply an aesthetic choice.  A colleague on the Board of the Queen Anne Historical Society is busy rehabilitating a house on Queen Anne.  Her house will sport unpainted beadboard soffits finished with a product called Warhorse which was introduced about 1907 — the same time her house and mine were built.  My board colleague taught me about unpainted soffits in the first place.

Then I went looking for them everywhere.  I can report that the new garage on the alley at W. Boston between 1^st and 2^nd W. has a tiny unpainted soffit over its roll up door.  When I asked the garage owners how they had known to treat the soffit that way, they attributed the choice to their painter.  Obviously, traditions have lasting value in the trades!

                                    Beautifully maintained soffit at 2919 2nd Ave N.

To that point, there is a new house on the northwest corner of W. Prospect and First Ave W. that adopts the soffit feature handily.  Indeed, the soffit actually wraps down the northern wall of the house to embrace the entranceway.

                                                   House of many planes at 1101 1st Ave W.  Built in 2020

                                                    Soffit wrapping to  vertical wall at 1101 1st Ave. W.

Still in Queen Anne, you’ll find a big wooden soffit gracing the new building on the parking lot of the former Bleitz Funeral Home at Florentia and 3^rd Ave.

                                 Building on Florentia at Bleitz site looking westerly

Frankly, I think it is beautiful. It is apparently constructed of edge-matched knotty pine.  I don’t know how it is finished, but the wood isn’t stained.

                                Knotty pine soffit looking north at Bleitz site

It is a grand addition to our neighborhood.

                                   Soffit at Tableau Building 744 N. 34th St.

                                                   Entrance and Canopy with wooden soffit at Tableau

Just across the canal in Fremont, the Tableau building and the brand-new Watershed, both under the Aurora Bridge on the north side of N. 34^th St. ,have elegant wooden soffits.

                                            Soffits at Watershed, 900 N. 34th St.

The most elegant modern soffit to attract my attention isn’t in the neighborhood.  It is on the new 2+U Building south of SAM at 1223 Second Ave.  Designed by Graham Baba, its construction was overseen by a friend of mine who works for Kendall/Heaton Associates Inc. of Houston.

                              Ash Soffit at 2+U looking southeast and up

He reports:  “The wood soffit seen from the ground plane is Rulon (brand) solid ash.  It is coated with Sherwin Williams Ken Aqua Lacquer.  The lacquer selection is crucial in commercial construction since building code requires an assembly that maintains a Class A fire rating.”

As you walk around our neighborhood, Fremont, or even downtown, abide by the architectural historian’s mantra:  Look up!  You too will join Captain Haddock and me as we exclaim, “Suffering Soffits!”

N.B.:  For better and for worse, the author took all the photos used here.

Many decades ago, I told my friends that the letter ’P’ in my PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures stood for ‘perseverance.’  Getting that doctorate did require some basic smarts, but really it took focus, a passion for the subject matter, consistent efforts and time, lots of time.  Just as becoming a PhD takes Perseverance, so does being a successful Preservation advocate.

Preservation advocacy can involve directly preparing landmark nominations, raising the money to hire someone to prepare one, writing articles and books, policing rogue alterations to landmark buildings, or testifying before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Board (LPB) for the nomination of a building or against unsympathetic irreparable alterations.

I document here three examples of preservation advocacy by the Queen Anne Historical Society (QAHS).  Now celebrating the 50^th anniversary of its founding, the Society has advocated for well over 50 different landmarks.  They range from churches to industrial buildings, to SRO hotels for working-class men, to homes for the rich along the boulevard and, yes, to the boulevard itself.

I am inordinately proud of this work.  With over fifteen historical societies scattered across the city, the QAHS is the only one regularly engaged in preservation advocacy.  While others have made significant contributions, ours is the only one to do it all.  In fact, the only comparable preservation advocates in the city are Historic Seattle and the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, where unlike our all-volunteer group, paid employees do the work.

Seattle City Light Power Control Center at 157 Roy Street

This unusual building caught the eye of one of the youngest members of the QAHS board because of her passion for mid-20^th c. architecture.  In 2014, she proposed that we hire someone to write the landmark nomination of the building or just do it ourselves.  Although I’d done several nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, I’d never written one for Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board (LPB).  In 2014, I began researching the history of this two-part octagonal/hexagonal structure on Roy Street across Warren Ave. from Metropolitan Market.  I was delighted to learn about the building’s architects Harmon, Pray and Dietrich and their place in our city’s architectural history at the time of building’s 1963 construction.  The history of Seattle City Light had been a fascination of mine ever since I learned about the ‘power war’ between it, the country’s earliest municipally owned utility, and Puget Power, an ‘off-spring’ of Stone and Webster, one of the largest power monopolies of the early 20^th c.  It cheered me that Seattle voters had exiled Puget Power and acquired its Seattle systems in 1951.  I was intrigued that the construction of I-5 and the demolition of an early power control center had triggered building this one.  I also liked very much that the unusual structure lay in the shadow of the Space Needle and that its design reflected the influence of the Century 21 World’s Fair held at Seattle Center.  After numerous editorial reviews by the QAHS Preservation Committee, friendly architectural historians and the LPB staff in the Department of Neighborhoods, the society submitted the 82-page nomination in February 2016.  It helped that City Light, the building owner, endorsed the nomination.  It had smooth sailing with hearings before the LPB on May 4 and June 16.  The Power Control Center became a designated city landmark when Mayor Edward Murray signed Ordinance 125321 on June 1, 2017, three years after we had started the research for it. Talk about perseverance!

Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist at 2555 8^th Ave. W.

The efforts by the QAHS to save this beautiful neighborhood church were unbelievably complicated and extended over many years.  Built in a Neo-Byzantine Early Christian Revival style and designed by Harlan Thomas (Thomas & Grainger) in 1926, the church reflected the historic boom of the Church of Christ, Scientist following its founding by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston in 1870, and its decline after WWII.  In the churches’ heyday, Seattle had 12 Churches of Christ, Scientist.  Only three remain active today (2021).

When the City of Seattle issued a demolition permit for the church in 2006, the QAHS and its Preservation Committee led by Char Eggleston and Leanne Olson sprang into action.  The committee engaged the Queen Anne Community Council; it enlisted the pro-bono efforts of preservation architects and structural engineers; it appealed and testified before the Hearing Examiner against the city for issuing the demolition permit; it supported other appellants in succeeding to have the city’s decision remanded; and it assisted Larry Johnson, the architect who had been attempting to save the church since 1992, with the preparation of the landmark nomination.  The Preservation Committee engaged the assistance of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation whose staff facilitated the purchase of this neighborhood treasure by the Church of Christ following an agreement with the site’s owner to sell if a new buyer could be found. Concurrently Char convinced the Church of Christ to support designation of the building and site.  Mayor Mike McGinn signed the ordinance designating the church a city landmark four years after the battle began on July 16, 2010. It never would have happened without the advocacy efforts of the Queen Anne Historical Society.

The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Garfield Exchange at 1529 4^th Ave. W.

Built to house heavy telephone equipment and the young women who operated it, this landmark was completed in 1922.  A second story was added in 1929, and the structure was later donated to the Seattle Public Library by the telephone company.  When the Library got ready to sell the building, it hired BOLA Architecture and Planning to prepare a landmark nomination for the LPB’s consideration.  When BOLA presented the nomination, the QAHS swung into action writing letters and testifying in favor of the nomination and subsequent designation.  Once designated as a city landmark, the controls and incentives negotiated with the LPB by the Seattle Public Library protected the building as it changed ownership.  Soon after the 2016 designation and its purchase, the new owner, the Faul Company and their architect, BuildingWork, began presenting design options to the Architectural Review Committee (ARC) of the LPB.  The QAHS attended numerous meetings of the ARC related to the Garfield Exchange commenting on the transformation of the industrial spaces to 25 residential apartment homes featuring 15-foot ceiling heights and restoration of the building’s exterior façade, its seismic retrofit and new building systems.  The proposed changes included a redesign of the primary entrance leading to the street, the replacement of windows, the introduction of a new elevator in the hidden courtyard on the south side and the addition of a penthouse.  The Queen Anne Historical Society did not oppose the hidden changes in the courtyard and embraced the penthouse addition since it was set back from the historic façade and could not be seen from the street directly in front of the building.  Significantly the penthouse addition met the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation by not mimicking in the new work historic qualities of the original fabric.  The society demanded the retention of the terra cotta capped stairway with its unique hammerhead shape and encouraged retention of a historic hoisting device on the alley side of the building.

After some initial resistance, we agreed to the sympathetic replacement of all the windows.  We continued to support the project following resistance by neighborhood groups which had concerns with street parking impacts.

As of this writing (July 14, 2021), this fantastic preservation project now renamed the Queen Anne Exchange is one apartment short of being fully leased.  Housing has been created for more than 25 people and an important feature of Queen Anne’s historic built environment has been preserved. The energy, risk taking, and talent of Chris and Angela Faul backed by the talent of Matt Aalfs, the primary architect and principal of BuildingWork, are largely responsible for the superb outcome.  It also helped that, like the Power Control Center, a city agency owned the Garfield Exchange at the time of nomination and designation, for building owners are often major obstacles when it comes to preserving historic buildings.

There is also no doubt that the preservation advocacy skills of the Queen Anne Historical Society eased the public and private efforts to save all three of these historic buildings and assured their conformity to our national standards.  It is also clear that without the society’s assertive preservation advocacy, the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist would have been lost, and both the Power Control Center and the Garfield Exchange would have been subject to demolition due to the valuable development potential of their sites.