This week’s work entailed preparing for a workshop on preservation and landmark nomination, sponsored by Historic Seattle. It’s an eight hour workshop covering such topics as preservation ordinance, new construction, zoning and planning, dealing with local historical properties, etc.

I suspect most of these topics won’t be applicable to my situation of submitting the Urban Queen Anne for historic preservation. But I’ve obtained the copy of the original deed from 1889, a 1937 photo of the house as well as a present day photo and a few other tid-bits of information. I’m hoping to get some tips on where to locate census and tax records from the last 120 years, along with cross references on previous owner’s bio’s.

In Seattle, landmarks must be older than 25 years, and maintain enough integrity to convey their significance, in addition to meeting one or more of six established criteria:

• How is it an outstanding example of its style or an outstanding work of the architect?
• How did the building contribute significantly to the development of the area or the city?
• What does it represent that is important (such as a social or architectural trend)?
• Is it related to an important person? Why was he or she significant? In what way was he or she connected to the building? Is the connection significant?
• Is this building unique in some way or are there others like it (style, building type, historical use, etc.)? Is this the city's best example?

The workshop should provide some ‘high brow’ entertainment never the less.