Briarcliff: From Elementary School to Housing Development

Snapshot in Time: Magnolia
By Jeffrey Cunningham
President, Magnolia Historical Society

Then:

In the late 1940’s, schools in Magnolia were becoming overcrowded. Magnolia School and Lawton were simply not big enough to accommodate the size of the growing community. Local citizens assembled with school board officials in late 1947 to plan a new school in west Magnolia. The Seattle School District had owned a piece of land on 39th and Dravus since 1929 for an intended high school, however this meeting prompted them to decide on an elementary school instead and Briarcliff was born. Nile Thompson and Carolyn Marr outline the early years of Briarcliff in their essay on historylink.org. Specifically they discuss the innovative design of the new school; each classroom would be a portable unit that was transportable, based on demand from existing schools in the district. This was touted at the “first of its kind in the country.” Manpower was still short due to WWII, so progress proceeded slowly. When it opened in September of 1948, the building was still not finished and students were even sent home twice that first school year, once because of furnace failure and another time because of sewer failure.

Briarcliff School 1960 (courtesy of HistoryLink)

Briarcliff School 1960 (courtesy of HistoryLink)

In 1951 Briarcliff became an independent school all its own with grades K-6; it had served as an annex to other Magnolia schools prior. It featured 10 classrooms, an auditorium, a cafeteria and a covered play court; however it still possessed its glued-together, temporary feel. This design did offer one benefit: individual exits in each classroom. This would allow for better escape should it be needed during emergencies. In Aleua Frare’s work, Magnolia Yesterday and Today, the author mentions various activities of the Briarcliff PTA in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. They hosted family dinners as well as “Father’s Follies” in the auditorium as fund raisers. Thompson and Marr discuss Briarcliff’s international connections: in the late 1950’s flowering cherry blossom trees were planted on school grounds in honor of Japanese Briarcliff students whose fathers served as Consul-Generals of Japan in Seattle. The School District instituted a desegregation policy in 1978 and students were bused across town from recently closed Hawthorne School. One staff member transferred there as well and the school and PTA were renamed Briarcliff-Hawthorne.

Briarcliff School was closed in 1984, the same year as Magnolia School on the eastern hill (building still extant). This was part of a district-wide consolidation policy. It served as a temporary school district site in 1987-89, but thereafter was used only for school district storage. Over time the site deteriorated and people became concerned with its state. According to Monica Wooton’s essay “A Certain Clout: The Magnolia Community Club” in Magnolia: Memories and Milestones, the late Lindsay Brown, lawyer, mother and member of the Magnolia Community Club raised concerns over rats and graffiti. No doubt in the 1990’s and early 2000’s it became an outdoor refuge for bored high school kids to participate in unsavory activities on lazy summer nights. Briarcliff and its environs became a sort of a makeshift park for people to walk their dogs through, complete with concrete basketball courts, spider-webbed with weed-strewn cracks.

2014-05 Briarcliff Front 2001

Briarcliff School 2001 (photo by the author)

In 2003 Lexington Fine Homes, based in Bellevue, purchased the 4 ½ acres of land from the Seattle School Board for $7.3 million and the school building was soon demolished. Their plan to divide the land into 39 lots would prove to be controversial. On their website Lexington Fine Homes discussed the potential for the site:

“Briarcliff is special because it is being designed to emulate the older neighborhood character and scale of the grand Magnolia houses built in the early 20th century. Our goal is to create a community that blends in and enhances the existing neighborhood.”

In spite of the developer’s promise to keep the housing consistent with the character of Magnolia, neighbors of Briarcliff were unimpressed and disagreed with the design proposal. Their contention was that the housing was far too dense and would cause overcrowding in the area. More than 120 Magnolians voiced their opposition at a hearing at Catherine Blaine School in July 2004. Local couple, Magnolia residents and fellow lawyers, Nick and Michele Marchi led the opposition.  “Nobody is against development there,” said Mr. Marchi, quoted in the August 23rd, 2004 Seattle Times article, “We’re just against the amount of houses they are trying to ram down our throats.” Magnolia Action Group’s website called the Lexington Fine Homes development a “cluster housing planned development.” There were worries that traffic would become congested around the tight corners of the proposed roads as well as outlets to Dravus Street. Construction was held up due to these complaints, but after a few years it finally commenced. The Magnolia Voice monitored the project closely: the land was graded and in early 2009 roads were paved though the site. Most significantly 39th Avenue, which had been a dead end on the south side of Briarcliff, was connected to its northern end.

Now:

In 2012, after only three houses had been built, the 36 empty properties were purchased by Cam West, another east-side developer. Cam West paid $400,000 for each parcel, totaling $14 million. The company is currently developing Briarcliff one house at a time and selling them in the $1 million range. Their website advertises views of the Seattle skyline, access to Discovery Park as well as the close proximity to downtown and up-and-coming South Lake Union, where Amazon.com has its headquarters. With most of the land still undeveloped, only time will tell if the houses will blend into their surrounding community.

Briarcliff in 2014 (photo by the author)

Briarcliff in 2014 (photo by the author)

Sources: Brandon Sprague, “High Density Housing Plan in Magnolia Stirs Protest,” Seattle Times, http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002012843_magnolia23m.html, August 23, 2004; CamWest, “Briarcliff,” http://www.camwest.com/community/Briarcliff.asp.;Frare, Aleua. Magnolia Yesterday and Today. Seattle, WA: Magnolia Community Club Publication, 1992;Lexington Fine Homes, “Briarcliff,” http://www.lexingtonfinehomes.com/briarcliff.htm.
Magnolia Action Group, http://www.orgsites.com/wa/mag;Magnolia Voice Blog Briarcliff page: http://www.magnoliavoice.com/tag/briarcliff/;Thompson, Nile and Carolyn J. Marr, “Briarcliff School.” HistoryLink.org Essay # 10464 from Building for Learning: Seattle Public School Histories. Seattle, WA: Seattle Public Schools, 2002; Wooton, Monica, “A Certain Clout: The Magnolia Community Club.” pgs. 273-283 in Magnolia: Memories and Milestones. Seattle, WA: Magnolia Community Club Publication, 2000.
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