Seattle Townhome Team
Where your Townhome search begins. And ends.
Sharing Walls -- Townhomes an Ancient Solution
In the middle ages, when space was at a premium within the walled cities of Europe and England, someone came up with the concept of the townhouse- a house that butted up right up to the house next door, and frequently shared a wall. It saved space making it possible for large numbers of people to live protected from invaders by tall stone walls. From that time onward, townhomes have been the norm in European urban areas.
Given the vastness of the New World and the availability of inexpensive land, it was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that townhomes became popular in North America. By the 1700’s, brick townhomes similar to those built in London were common in Philadelphia. The famous brownstone townhomes of New York City were constructed almost one hundred years later during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. By 1901, brownstones were the middle class norm in New York. Architect Charles Israels wrote, “Every good Knickerbocker considered it his duty to house his family within four walls where he would be the sole lord and master; and the highest reach of his ambition was the ‘brownstone front.’”
In Seattle, townhomes have been around for almost a century, but few were built between the 1930’s and 1980’s. Unfortunately, many of the original townhomes built in Seattle were razed in the 1960’s to make room for Seattle Center. Beginning in the early 1990’s, as in city land values escalated, townhomes experienced a resurgence. Today, they are routinely built throughout the city and Seattle has become the home to a very vast and eclectic variety of townhomes.