From Crosscut: Washington state welcomed its first official Literary Landmark last week — a surprising statistic given Seattle’s reputation as a bookstore-loving, writer-nurturing, library-card-holding, even poetry-slam-attending city.
The designation comes from national group United for Libraries, which over the last 30 years has awarded 33 other states with landmarks commemorating deceased writers including Spalding Gray, Margaret Mitchell, Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker.
Washington’s first such certification is dedicated to local poet Richard Hugo, but instead of his birthplace or writing space, the plaque adorns the 11th Avenue entrance of a brand new, state-of-the-art apartment building on Capitol Hill.
Hugo House, the namesake literary center founded in 1996 by Seattle writers Linda Breneman, Andrea Lewis and Frances McCue, was originally located in a Victorian-era building that had long served as a funeral parlor — precisely the sort of structure on which you might expect to find a historic plaque. Writers loved the building (which Breneman had purchased with Linda and Ted Johnson) for its quirky charms, creaking floorboards (and alleged ghosts). But in recent years, as attendance at Hugo House classes and events increased, what once seemed darling was moving toward decrepit.
After trying and failing to get historic landmark status from the Seattle Landmark Preservation board in 2013, Hugo House began exploring other options for improving and expanding the space. With the Capitol Hill apartment boom, “mixed-use” facilities were all the rage, and in 2014 the building owners began working with developer Meriwether Partners on a plan. Weinstein A+U was selected as the architect for the new six-story, brick-clad apartment building, to be constructed on the same site. The Hugo House nonprofit would purchase 10,000 square feet on the first floor, for about half the market rate. In 2016, the Victorian was razed, and the $7.5 million capital campaign began.
Last weekend, the new Hugo House space (designed by Seattle’s NBBJ architects) threw open its thoroughly modern glass doors for the grand opening. Attendees standing in line for the packed party had a clear view of the plaque.
“We knew we had a strong case with Hugo House reopening,” says Linda Johns (of Seattle Public Library), who submitted the Literary Landmark application with Nono Burling (of Washington State Library) on behalf of Washington Center for the Book. Hugo House was the first location ever submitted from Washington state, and starting in 2019, Johns and Burling hope to establish two more per year. “Wouldn’t it be great to have a whole bunch, and map them?” Johns says.
The text commemorating Hugo begins, “Raised in White Center by severe, taciturn grandparents, Richard Hugo (1923-1982) overcame his impoverished childhood to become a nationally beloved poet and teacher.”
