Salvaging Seattle’s History: The Lochkelden Estate

View all available salvaged items from Lochkelden

Built in 1907 and designed by architects Bebb & Mendel, this Spanish Revival-style mansion sits above Lake Washington in the Windermere neighorhood and was the home of Rolland Denny and Alice Kellogg. Rolland was the son of Arthur and Mary Denny, who were part of the earliest groups of White settlers to travel the Oregon Trail and make their new home in Seattle. During the journey, Rolland was born in Portland, Oregon, on September 2, 1851. About two months later, the Denny party and others arrived on Alki Beach via the schooner Exact in November 1851. At two months old and nearing starvation, Rolland would have likely died if not for the Duwamish tribal members who supplied the infant with life-saving clam nectar to supplement his mother’s breast milk.

Rolland was part of the first graduating class of the Territorial University in 1869, which later became the University of Washington. He then worked with Dexter Horton, Seattle’s first banker, and eventually worked his way up to become the bank’s director. Roland and Alice married in 1877 and years later their estate was commissioned and built. They named it “Lochkelden” as in Loch- (Scottish for lake), -kel- (Kellogg) and –den (Denny). Originally on the outskirts of town, it was designed as a country estate that was only accessible by boat in the early years. Unlike the mansions of Capitol Hill whose carriage houses where used for cars, this one was built for a carriage and horses that Rolland would ride on the gravel Windermere Road once it was built. Rolland died on June 13, 1939. His life in Seattle spanned from the first log cabin to a city of 400,000 residents.

Photo courtesy of Seattle Now & Then blog, interior of the main floor living room at Lochkelden in 1913

The estate was sold to the American Unification Church in 1974 and it was used as a home and retreat grounds by church leadership and members until the sale of the property to developers in 2022. The church made many attempts to sell the property to a buyer who would preserve the building, but restoration costs proved to be economically unfeasible. As such, the mansion is scheduled for demolition, but Earthwise was able to successfully salvage a great deal of materials and historical pieces from the estate for future reuse.

You can find all the salvaged items from the Lochkelden estate in our inventory here. While it’s always sad to lose a historical building due to restoration not being an option financially, this is exactly why our salvage process is so vital to keeping the history of our buildings alive. We are honored to be able to give these materials a second life and we hope you will enjoy finding a piece of Seattle’s history to make your own.

See below for a video and more photos of many of the materials we were able to salvage from the Lochkelden estate as they were originally placed.