Tag Archives: Montlake

View Across Lake Washington from the Bridge

The SR520 bridge across Lake Washington provides some great views of the lake and the shoreline around it.  The nice thing about riding my bike across the bridge’s cycle trail is that it means I can stop and take some photos – even if they are only with my phone.  The headland leading in to the Montlake Cut seems like a great place to live when it is a warm and sunny day in Seattle.

The other end of the bridge is the location of some pretty impressive houses.  It is an area that is popular with many of the tech moguls that make Seattle home.  I figured it would be wrong not to take a moment to have a look at the nice houses there.  Bear in mind that these houses, while very nice and next to the lake are also right next to a major highway!

Montlake Spite House

I saw something online about people building houses in unusual spaces.  Sometimes this was because that was all the space that they had available.  Other times they did it to spite someone who had the adjacent property.  One of them turned out to be in Seattle so I decided to check it out when we were over there running some other errands.  It is located in Montlake.

The house is a wedge shape.  If you look at it from the main road, it looks like a relatively normal frontage.  Nothing too special.  From the wide end, it seems like a single room width property.  There is a garage underneath and rooms above.  Go to the other end, though, and you see just how much it narrows down.  There is space for a door and that is about it.  A trip to Google Maps will show you the footprint of the house and you can see how it has been squeezed in.  A weird place for sure but apparently a popular house to own judging by the price it has sold for in the past!