Neely Mansion
| Aaron Neely, Sr. Mansion | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 Neely Mansion, spring 2006 |
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| location | Highway 18 near Auburn , Washington | ||
| Coordinates | 47 ° 16 '1.3 " N , 122 ° 10' 39.3" W | ||
| surface | <1 acre | ||
| Built | 1864 | ||
| Architectural style | Victorian architecture | ||
| NRHP number | 74001955 | ||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1974 | ||
The Neely Mansion is a Victorian architectural style residential building built in 1894 . It is located on the eastern edge of Auburn , already in the unincorporated part of King County, Washington in the town of Lake Morton-Berrydale, Washington . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1974 and is also listed on the Washington State Heritage Register .
From the 1950s through the 1970s, the condition of the building deteriorated significantly until local residents rallied to restore the house. It was used as a haunted house by the theater department at Auburn High School during the initial phase of repairs , but that use ended as the renovation progressed. In the 2010s the building was owned by a non-profit historical society.
architecture
The house is a two story building with a square floor plan. The facade is made of shingles. The front entrance is centrally located between two windows; there are three windows on the opposite side. They are all surrounded by an entablature and a decorated border. There is a sawed tailpiece under each lintel . A decorative console separates the first and second floors. On the ground floor there are open verandas on the sides that run the entire length of the house. The front porch has a balcony on the second floor; a triangular gable sits above it. The interior of the gable console is filled with diamond-shaped clapboards and has a central round window.
interior
The house has high, spacious rooms. On the ground floor there is the kitchen, the dining room, a salon and the master bedroom. There are further bedrooms on the upper floor. The walls inside are paneled with maple wood up to a height of 1.5 m; above that the walls are plastered. The house was lit by candles and oil-powered chandeliers that hung from the ceiling and could be lowered and raised by hand. Before the Second World War they switched to electric lighting. In 1948 the shingles were re-tiled and the front porch was given a concrete foundation.
Neely family
David Neely and his family were among the first white settlers to arrive in the Green River valley in 1853 . After a dangerous overland journey from Tennessee, they crossed the Naches Pass and reached Porter's Prairie at Enumclaw . He settled in Kent , where he and his family escaped death when Indians attacked the area in 1855. David Neely's son Aaron went to Auburn , married, and fathered daughter Lenore in 1879. Soon after their birth, the family moved to what is now the Neely Mansion, which he and some craftsmen built in 1894. The house often hosted parties for friends who came to Auburn to shop and stayed overnight and for neighbors. On these occasions, all the doors on the first floor were opened and guests could dance through the rooms to music played by violinists.
meaning
The Neely Mansion is a significant example of residential architecture, demonstrating the effect of using prefabricated wooden decorative elements on a fairly simple floor plan. It is also significant to the growing wealth of families in the Seattle area and as a once important center of social life in the Green River Valley.
supporting documents
- ^ A b c d e Robert E., Gaines: Neely, Aaron Sr. Mansion, 74001955 ( English ) In: National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form . United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. October 15, 1974.
