The Lovegren house, a substantial two-story house with a wrap-around porch and bay windows, overlooks the community of Preston. August Lovegren, who built the house in 1904 for his growing family, developed the Preston Mill and encouraged extensive Swedish settlement in the Preston area. After leaving his native Sweden and working as a carpenter in several Midwestern communities, Lovegren arrived in Seattle just after the Great Fire of 1889. He invested money he had earned as a carpenter in the mill site at Preston. After a rough start during economic hard times in the 1890s, the mill began to prosper, and Lovegren was able to build an elegant home surrounded by landscaped grounds. The high-ceilinged Victorian style interior features elaborate handcrafted vertical grain woodwork and mass-produced fireplace mantels and decorative spandrels. The house, which had fallen into disrepair, was extensively restored in the early 1990s. Address: 8612 310th Avenue SE, Preston.
King County Landmarks: August Lovegren House (1904), Preston
- By Heather MacIntosh
- Posted 1/01/2000
- HistoryLink.org Essay 2377
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