Events
GiveBig is Coming May 6, 7
Queen Anne is more than turn-of-the-century mansions. It is the small neighborhood homes, vintage apartments, businesses, people and trees that make this a special place to live. A key goal for us in us in 2025 is to landmark an additional historic property. We need your support.
As our housing density increases, it is more important than ever to keep a balance of old and new. Landmarking is a powerful tool and your gift will allow us to raise the funds to preserve another historic building, adding to our current 54 landmarked properties on Queen Anne.
We have a matching fund of $5,000 for this year’s GiveBig campaign . Every dollar you donate will be matched 100% to a total $5,000, specially dedicated to landmarking one Queen Anne built structure. ($10,000 has historically been the cost of a landmark submission.)
GiveBIG is a quick and easy way to support our all-volunteer Queen Anne Historical Society and this important work.
Thank You
Annual Preservation Awards
May is Preservation month. This year we honor the following people and places that make Queen Anne such a wonderful historic neighborhood to call home. Light dinner/appetizers and beverages will be served.
Outstanding Honors for 2025
Business: Queen Anne Book Company
Community Organization: Queen Anne Baptist Church
Renovation: St Pauls’ Episcopal Church
Adaptive Reuse: West Canal Yard
Stewardship: Leona Condominiums/Park Ridge
Restoration: Villa Costella
Queen Anne Farmers Market
Come see us at the QA Community Tent on July24, starting at 3p.
Drop by to chat with us about life on Queen Anne, yesterday and today.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery Tour
Join historian, Kim Turner on our annual tour of Queen Anne’s historic Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Visit unique headstones and see the final resting places for the namesakes of many of our streets. Tour also includes Seattle pioneer’s graves and the history of some of Washington’s tragic events marked by gravesites and memorials. Wear comfortable walking shoes and meet us at the main entry gates. Downpour cancels.
Registration is not yet open.
The Architecture of West Kinnear Place
West Kinnear Place is a microcosm of the architectural home designs on Queen Anne through the decades.
Join us a for a walking tour to see the variety of exterior styles and learn when they were popular from 1890’s to today.
The oldest existing home on West Kinnear Place was built in 1890 and is a classic Queen Anne Victorian. As the decades and home building continued you can see Tudor, colonial, craftsman, Spanish revival, post war and a number of contemporary homes built in the first quarter of this century. All in a three block walk.
Registration is not yet open.
A public panel discussion: The One Seattle Plan Understanding the impacts to our historic neighborhoods SOLD OUT
Panelists:
Rico Quirindongo, Director of the Office of Planning and Community
Development which developed the plan
Eugenia Woo, Director of Preservation Services at Historic Seattle
Maureen Elenga, a former president of the Queen Anne Historical
Society's board and the staff of Washington State's Department of
Archeology and Historic Preservation.
Michael Herschensohn, Ph.D. M.A. HPP, also of the Queen Anne
Historical Society board will moderate the conversation.
Panelists will respond to questions submitted to them prior to the meeting
and from the floor.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery Tour
Join historian, Kim Turner or our own Michael Herschensohn on our annual tour of Queen Anne’s historic Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Visit unique headstones and see the final resting places for the namesakes of many of our streets. Tour also includes Seattle pioneer’s graves and the history of some of Washington’s tragic events marked by gravesites and memorials. Wear comfortable walking shoes and meet us at the main entry gates.
SORRY- SOLD OUT
Tree Tour with Robin Dearling
Join Seattle Tree Ambassador, Robin Dearling, for a tour of some interesting species of trees in her neighborhood. Robin will share the history and botanical details of the trees on these urban blocks and demonstrate the joys of discovering the trees in our own "backyards".
Robin Dearling has led several art and tree tours for the Queen Anne Historical Society. She studied with the Trees for Seattle program sponsored by Seattle City Light and became a “Tree Ambassador” several years ago. Robin is also a docent at the Seattle Art Museum and has given presentations at all three of their sites.
Wear comfortable walking shoes and meet us at the west end of Kerry Park.
5:00 pm, July 18
These public tours are very popular.
Unfortunately this tour has sold out.
Please enjoy your own tree tour of the many magnificent trees in our neighborhood. If you would like send us photos of your favorite trees on the hill.
Annual Award Celebration
May is Preservation month. This year we honored the following people and places that make Queen Anne such a wonderful historic neighborhood to call home.
Business: Targy's Tavern
Organization: Queen Anne Farmer's Market
Renovation: North Queen Anne School
Adaptive Reuse: Masonic Lodge
Stewardship: Handschey House
The Landmark Nomination Event Benjamin McAdoo’s Queen Anne Pool
The landmark nomination of the Queen Anne Pool by the Queen Anne Historical Society creates a remarkable learning moment about historic preservation. The pool opened in 1977 as the last project of the transformative Forward Thrust levy. It is the work of Benjamin F. McAdoo (1920-1981), the first licensed African American architect in Washingon State. The nomination will be the focus of a talk by Spencer Howard and Katie Pratt at 6:00 p.m. on February 1, 2024, at the Queen Anne Public Library. Northwest Vernacular, Howard and Pratt’s firm, prepared the nomination that will soon be before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Board.
Historic preservation as expressed in Seattle’s landmark ordinance is not about saving beautiful things. Indeed beauty is not an easily shared value which Seattle’s preservation law doesn’t even mention. Only one of Seattle’s six criteria for landmark designation addresses the features of potential landmarks. It reads “ It embodies the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectual style, period, or method of construction.”
Residences of Robert Reichert
Join the Queen Anne Historical Society and Historic Seattle for a talk on the life and residential work of one of Seattle’s most original architects, Robert George Reichert, presented by Jeff Murdock of Historic Seattle. The residences that Reichert designed, ranging from the provocative house-studio on Queen Anne that he designed for himself, his mother and his pipe organ, to the houses he designed in the Seattle area for primarily women clients, help to tell the story of this iconoclastic artist-architect.
This FREE event is on a first come, first served basis. The attendance is limited to 78 people, so arriving early (between 5:45-6:00 pm) will make sure you have a seat. There is no on-line registration due to library policies that do not allow registration.
Queen Anne Farmers Market
Do you love the Queen Anne Farmer’s Market? We do!
Come see us at the QA Community Tent on Sept 7th, starting at 3p.
Drop by to chat with us about life on Queen Anne, yesterday and today and pick up a pinwheel.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery Tour
This event is sold out.
Join historian, Kim Turner on his annual tour of Queen Anne’s historic Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Visit unique headstones, see where some of Seattle’s pioneers are buried and learn about the history of some of Washington’s tragic events that are marked by gravesites and memorials while wandering the beautiful grounds. Wear comfortable walking shoes and meet us at the main entry gates.
Kinnear Park Walking Tour
This event is sold out.
Join Seattle Tree Ambassador, Robin Dearling for a tour of historic Kinnear Park. Robin will share the history of this wonderful greenspace while identifying its many trees and plants. Space is limited for this free walking tour, so register here today so you don’t miss out!
2023 Queen Anne Historical Society Awards Celebration
May is Preservation month and this year we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Seattle Landmarks Legislation! Join us at the Swedish Club’s Three Crowns Dining Room to honor the people and places that make Queen Anne such a wonderful historic neighborhood to call home.
Tickets include hors d’oeuvres & beverages
$15 for Queen Anne Historical Society members
$25 for community participants
FREE for award recipients & donors of over $100/year & their guests
Register Here today!
Decoding Art in Seattle’s Public Spaces with James Rupp
We are no longer requiring registration for this event. We look forward to seeing you there!
Walk down any street in Seattle, turn the corner, and you are likely to discover art enhancing the city’s public spaces. No other U.S. city can match the per capita number of artworks in Seattle’s public spaces. How did Seattle amass such a vast collection? Join Jim Rupp, author of Art in Seattle’s Public Spaces, from SoDo to South Lake Union, as he weaves through over 100 years of urban art collecting.
Jim Rupp is the author of Art in Seattle’s Public Spaces, from SoDo to South Lake Union, recently published by the University of Washington Press. A Seattle native, long-time lawyer and local historian, Jim has collected information about art in Seattle public spaces for over forty years. His first book, Art in Seattle’s Public Places, an Illustrated Guide, was published by the UW Press in 1992.
Queen Anne Corner Groceries
Everywhere you look on Queen Anne’s arterial streets are the sites of historic grocery stores. The Queen Anne Dispatch at Q.A. Avenue and Boston was a Standard Grocery. The Fountainhead Art Gallery near Macrina Bakery was a Piggly Wiggly store. Did you shop at Nelsen’s Quality Grocery store, where Top Pot Doughnuts is now? What were our shopping habits like in these earlier days?
Join the Queen Anne Historical Society and historian Alicia Arter for a free public virtual lecture on January 26th. The visuals and family memories behind these stores will help all of us view Queen Anne history in a new light. Register HERE today!
Walter Willcox: The Man Behind the Walls
Architectural Historian Marvin Anderson will share with us the life, career, and architectural philosophy of Walter Willcox, designer of one of Queen Anne's most beloved landmarks.
Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Tour with Kim Turner
Join Queen Anne Historian Kim Turner for a tour of Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Art & Tree Tour with Robin Dearling
Art & Tree Tour at Parsons Gardens / Betty Bowen Viewpoint with Seattle Tree Ambassador Robin Dearling
Annual QAHS Awards Ceremony
The Queen Anne Historical Society is excited to announce a return to in-person events for our 2022 QAHS Awards Celebration! It has been since 2019 that we last gathered at the beautiful Three Crowns Lounge in the historic Swedish Club. We would love for you to join us there on May 26th to make this event all the more special!
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