Viewing the Park from different angles

For those of us who don’t get out on Lake Washington very often (if at all), here’s an opportunity to take a voyeuristic peak back at Madison Park from the water side. This is a photo sent to me by Mercer Island author Dave Dykstra, whose book, Lake Washington 130 Homes, I briefly reviewed earlier this summer. It shows the waterside mansion of Howard and Sheri Schultz in a shot taken during the summer. Here’s the property as it looks during the winter months:

Dykstra has a lot of other water-based Madison Park photos in his book, which is available at Ropa Bella.

If you are unfamiliar with Google Earth you are missing out on a free and fun program that you really should be exploring (assuming that your computer has the capacity to handle it). Here is a satellite image of Madison Park from 1 km in space (click to enlarge):

There are multiple locations within Madison Park where you can get a street-level view (this is also true if you are just using the map search function of Google). Here is the intersection of E. Lake Washington Blvd. and McGilvra Blvd. E., at the border of Madison Park and Denny-Blaine (you can pan this 360 degrees):


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Seattle panoramic photographer Bradford Bohonus also has some interesting 360 degree views of Madison Park on his site, VRSeattle.com. This is his shot of Madison Park Beach on an early autumn day:

On his webpage you can pan this photo, as well as four others in the neighborhood. He also has several nice views of the Arboretum.

Short takes

Madison Park Beach makes Seattle Weekly’s 2009 Best of Seattle List: In choosing our beach as the “Best Spot to Run into the Random People You Thought You’d Never See Again After High School,” the Weekly claims that “the beach is literally divided into elementary-school, middle-school, high-school, and college zones, from north to south.” Who knew? Literally? Anyway, the paper designates Madison Beach as “the unofficial stomping ground of all of Seattle’s youth,” commenting on the “beer, pot, and cigarettes galore” to be found there. (The Harvest Vine in Madison Valley, incidentally, also made the paper’s list as the “Best Place for a High-Heeled Date”.)

Harasser of Madison Park Resident Gets No Jail Time: State Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Milstein, who once lived in Madison Park, has pleaded guilty in a very bizarre harassment case which was covered in some detail today by the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Milstein, who now lives in Kirkland and is married to KING-TV reporter Deborah Feldman, admits going onto sex-related websites to impersonate the victim, a married woman who resides here. As a result of Millstein’s actions, the victim began receiving dozens of phone calls from people thinking she might be interested in engaging in various sexual acts with them. Milstein, who received only 240 hours of community service as his sentence, apologized for his actions and resigned from his state position today (his job was to represent the state Department of Social and Health Services in child protection cases). However, neither the PI story nor a similar report in the Seattle Times provides any explanation of Milstein’s motivation for perpetrating this gross misdemeanor.

Hit and Runs Not Confined to Land: There have been several hit and runs reported in the general area during the summer, including one on Monday. Now comes a report from the Seattle Police blog that there was a major boating hit and run on Lake Washington about a half mile south of the Evergreen Point bridge last week. “According to the victims, their boat was adrift in the water. The adult male victim was swimming while the adult female victim remained in the boat. The suspect’s boat bore down on the victims and did not change direction. The suspect’s boat collided with the victim’s boat and went over it, damaging and disabling it. Both the male and the female sustained minor injuries from the collision.” The Harbor Police brought the victims and their boat safely to land. The suspect has not been apprehended.

Lakeside Mansions of Madison Park Featured in New Book: Lake Washington boater David Dykstra, who is fascinated by all of the mansions that ring the Lake’s shoreline, has just self-published a book, Lake Washington 130 Homes, which provides an opportunity for the curious to view pictures taken from the water side of some of the more notable examples. Among the Madison Park homes that Dykstra profiles are four in the Reed Estate (those of Howard Schultz, Jack Briggs, Gregg Maffei, and Colin Moseley, although he incorrectly identifies Colin’s father, Furman Moseley, as the current resident). Also included are the area mansions of Joel Diamond, Martin Selig, Brooks Ragen, and Russell Horowitz, whose 1929 manse is probably the classiest of the lot. (Brigg’s spectacular property, which is for sale, was featured on this blog earlier this summer in “A glimpse beyond the gates”). In addition to his misidentifications (he is totally wrong about the site of actor Tom Skerritt's residence, for example) Dykstra provides no architectural commentary or context with his pictures. Still, it's interesting to see these mansions from the water side, even if you can't trust that identified owner really lives there.

[Beach photo by David Hutchins.]

A glimpse beyond the gates

We’re still a few days away from our May report on the Madison Park real estate market, but I thought it might be fun in the meantime to take a look at what is currently the most expensive listing in the neighborhood, according to Redfin. This 7,470 sq. ft. mansion, listed at $12,850,000, is the northernmost of the waterfront houses in the Reed Estate, that super-exclusive, walled-and-gated Washington Park enclave in which also sits the mega-home of Howard and Sheri Schultz.

This 1978 house, which was last on the market for $15.5 million in late 2006, boasts 135 feet of no-bank waterfront and is ensconced on almost three-fourths of an acre. With six bedrooms and 4.75 baths, the high-ceilinged French-style abode has a basement movie theatre and guest quarters, a three-car garage, two kitchens, and an in-door hot tub and spa.

And as you can see, the grounds are pretty spectacular as well.

And of course there's a dock.

Although much of the interior has justly been described as “Frenchified,” the term clearly does not apply to all parts of the house, including the library.

You can probably have this property for a discount from the listing price, since the house has been on the market on this latest go-round for 267 days, according to Redfin. Be prepared, however, for a steep tax bill ($97,000 for 2009, with a $10,662,000 assessed value for the 2010 tax year). And at today’s jumbo-mortgage interest rate (assuming you could even get a loan), monthly payments would be $61,000, with 20% down.

The property, located at 1500 42nd Avenue E., is listed by Kitty Hughes of Madison House Ltd., one of the Park’s top realtors.

If this villa is a bit out of your price range and you still would like to live in the Reed Estate, you are in luck. A “gracious and exceedingly elegant home” on the grounds is also on the market at only $2,975,000. Unfortunately, not on the water, no water view, and no indoor spa.

[Photos courtesy of luxist.com]