Hawthorne Hills is a neighborhood in northeast Seattle bounded on the north by N.E. 65th Street, on the south and east by the Burke-Gilman Trail, and on the west by 40th Avenue N.E.
This section abridged from "The Way We Were" by Gail Chiarello, Hawthorne Holler, Winter 2006.
 In July 1928, E. S. Simmons and Hawthorne K. Dent submitted a plat for Hawthorne Hills to the King County Auditor. In 1925 Simmons had been President of the City Planning Commission. Simmons was a major developer who hired the Olmsted Brothers to plan The Uplands and The Highlands. Although the contoured streets of Hawthorne Hills resemble Olmsteds' contoured Ravenna Boulevard (contrast with Seattle's typical right-angled grids), so far there is no firm evidence the Olmsteds planned Hawthorne Hills. Dent, who held the mortgage, is the founder of Safeco Insurance.
Around this time Ole Rasmussen Blindheim, owner of the LaVilla Dairy in Lake City, grazed his herd of cows at 40th Ave. NE & NE 55th St., near the current Metropolitan Market. This area is now the Burke-Gilman Place Playfield. When trains ran over four of his cows, Mr. Blindheim moved his herd back to Lake City in disgust. He'd had enough--neither the railroad nor the county would reimburse him.
There were seven homes in the original development--large brick Tudor residences reminiscent of England. One of the original homes still stands on the SW corner of NE 60th Street & Princeton Way. Initially development was slow, but by the end of the Second World War, Hawthorne Hills was covered with its characteristic Cape Cods, smaller brick Tudors, and California-style brick ranch homes.
Many of our streets were named after college towns--Ann Arbor, Pullman, Stanford, etc. The center of the neighborhood is University Circle Park, with its views towards both Lake Washington and downtown Seattle, including the Space Needle.
 The Princeton Street Bridge off Sand Point Way serves as the main entrance to the neighborhood from Sand Point Way NE.
The original bridge was built in 1930. One of the oldest bridges in Seattle, it was replaced in 2002.
History Link article on View Ridge and Hawthorne Hills |
