Address: 11408 Cedarhurst Road, Vashon, Vashon Island.
The Smith-Baldwin house, located on a low bank waterfront lot on the northwest end of Vashon Island, was designed in 1912 for Elizabeth N. Smith by noted Seattle architect Harlan Thomas. The house, known as the “Rose Cottage” is built in the Georgian Revival Style. Expansive multi-paned sash, beveled siding, the truncated hip roof, the prominent oversize porch, and Thomas’s use of patterned brick and roses on pergolas and trellises all combine to create a house sited and scaled to complement its natural setting. In 1908, Smith’s daughter, Dr. Belle Baldwin and her husband Albert moved to the property. Among the first wave of women to be awarded medical degrees, Dr. Baldwin had graduated from the University of Michigan in 1888. Baldwin maintained a practice in Seattle, and lived at Fern Cove until 1942. The house is now (2000) part of the Vashon Park District’s 13.5 acre Fern Cove Preserve. A gambrel roofed carriage house has been restored for use as an interpretive center.
