This Hunts Point home belonged to the Meydenbauer family. Patriarch William Meydenbauer first came to the Eastside in 1869 and staked a claim on the bay that now bears his name. By 1883 he had sold all of his Bellevue property.

He tried to buy it back a few years later, but decided that the asking price of $75/acre was too expensive. In 1906 he bought a piece of land on Hunts Point and built this vacation home.

The Meydenbauers were not the only ones with hideaways on Hunts Point in the early 20th century. Hunts Point residents were numerous and vocal enough to merit a complaint in a 1910 editorial from the Seattle paper The Town Crier.

The author of the editorial, discussing opposition to the Lake Washington Ship Canal, mentions “sentimental owners of bungalows on or near Hunt’s [sic] Point who want to keep the lake as a private preserve for recluses and hermits….”

Heritage Corner is a feature in the Bellevue Reporter. Material is provided by the Eastside Heritage Center. For more information call 425-450-1049.