The quest to find and photograph a historic Seattle mansion that may soon face demolition

Seattle writer, teacher, performer, and amateur historian Jean Sherrard has a insatiable curiosity about Seattle's past and present. He wrote about something in The Seattle Times “Now and Then” column recently that made us curious. It concerns the search for a nearly forgotten historic mansion built by one of Seattle's founding families, the Dennys. He told KUOW’s Rob Wood about the journey and what he discovered.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Rob Wood: Where is this mansion, and how did it come to be?

Jean Sherrard: Loch Kelden is located just south of Magnuson Park, up on a bluff in the neighborhood now called Windermere. If you go out on the water, you can look up on the hill and see this kind of magnificent Spanish Mission revival mansion built in 1907 by Rolland Denny, one of the original and youngest members of the Denny party.

You quipped that your mission was to find a photo of this mansion in its glory days, and then one now. How did you find the "then" photo?

In this case, the Museum of History and Industry had but one photo I could come up with of the mansion in its glory days. This photo was from, I think, 1926, by which time it was covered with ornamental ivy. Finding that photo was instrumental in doing the story.

Getting a "now" photo proved to be a bit more difficult. Tell us about that.

I have to go back a little into the history of the estate. In 1974, the Unification Church, commonly known as the Moonies, bought this estate. They used it as a sort of church domicile and a place for visiting dignitaries.

We heard recently from a longtime caretaker of the estate, who invited a group of historians to come and visit. At the last minute, he contacted us and said the estate has essentially been sold, and the buyer has installed a nondisclosure agreement which prevents anyone from visiting the estate, or documenting its condition, or dealing with it in any way. So, we realized the only way we could take our "now" photo was to go on the water below and shoot up.

That's basically the tale of our Mission Impossible, to find a boat and take the "now" photo from the water. We took the boat from Lake Union, it was a friend's little cabin cruiser, and we came around just south of Magnuson Park. And it really feels like a little symphony up on the hill. I think I’d categorize this as a real treasure.

It's a beautiful house. What's going to happen to Loch Kelden now?

As far as we know, all this is shrouded under several layers of intentional secrecy. All we can determine is that there is no schedule for its demolition that has been presented in any public forum. We're all essentially in the dark. I'm hoping that a little light shed on the subject might indeed inspire developers to save the place. There are many uses that this lovely mansion can be put to. I would say the least and most diminished of them would be to tear it down and replace it with multimillion-dollar houses.

Was there something that especially surprised you in reporting this story?

Well, I discovered not only the history of the structure, but also that of Rolland Denny, who was the youngest member of the Alki landing party, 2 months old when the party landed on Alki Beach. He was quite literally starving to death. His parents had malaria. His mother's milk had dried. And the only solution that was presented was from the Duwamish tribe members who greeted the Denny party on the beach and suggested that he try clam nectar. According to settler accounts, he actually thrived and survived almost entirely on clam nectar until he could eat something solid.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.