Landscape Information
Nestled between West Olympic Place and West Mercer Place in West Queen Anne, this fourteen-acre, steeply sloped park occupies a forested bluff approximately one-quarter mile east of the Puget Sound. One of the city’s oldest public parks and featuring distinct upper and lower sections, it was established in 1887 with the donation of eleven acres by land developer George Kinnear and his wife, Angie Simmons Kinnear. From 1892 to1894 landscape architect and Parks Superintendent, E. O. Schwagerl, planned the park’s upper section, designing curvilinear paths around irregularly shaped lawns interspersed with naturalistic groups of trees including beech, maple, and cedar. In 1897 the Kinnears donated an additional three acres enlarging the park to its current size. In 1903 John Charles Olmsted visited, praising the borrowed views.
Largely unchanged since the nineteenth century the park’s upper section parallels West Olympic Place and is defined by a concrete retaining wall (1909), which includes an integrated bench designed by Olmsted Brothers. Framed by concrete pillars, two separate entrances lead to an Art-Deco restroom (1929), nestled into the steep terrain. The modest structure is topped by a viewing platform that offers borrowed western views. At the base of the structure, curvilinear paths frame an expansive sloped lawn and lead east, where it descends the forested bluff to the park’s lower section.
In 2012 HBB Landscape Architecture prepared a master plan for the lower section, designing paths to echo those laid out by Schwagerl, wooden staircases, and tiered beds planted with ferns. From a tennis court (1947), a path winds through a dense, naturalized woodland, to a dog park (2014) and the park’s southern edge. The park was designated a Seattle landmark in 2001.
