The House that Fred Meyer Couldn’t Buy
On any given day, there are plenty of homes for sale in the Roseway neighborhood, but it’s not very often that someone comes in and wants to buy several blocks worth. But, that’s exactly what Fred Meyer did back in 1949 when he started to build his Rose City shopping center which was at the time the “largest store in the West” on 70th and Sandy. Well, almost…
There was one home that was definitely not for sale, regardless of how much Mr. Meyer was willing to pay. The 4 room home on 69th, owned (at the time) by Eugene and Ruth Murray had been paid off free and clear and there was no way the owners were going to walk away from it and have to purchase another property somewhere else.
So, what’s a developer to do? Build around it, of course!
As you can see by the images, the fact that the Murray’s wouldn’t sell their home didn’t stop Fred Meyer from building his shopping center. He literally built it around the property.
Most home owners would be beside themselves with anger if something like this happened. Not the Murray’s though… In fact, they were happy to report that by having the giant concrete walls built around their property, their heating costs had dropped presumably because they were now sheltered from the East winds that blew through the area.
Today, long after the demolition of the Fred Meyer store and the Murray home (which I believe was moved), the area is occupied by Safeway and a condo complex.
What would you have done?
About the Author | Jeff Bernheisel
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My name is Jeff Bernheisel.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bryan . Bryan said: I like this blog. Maybe cause I enjoy living in #roseway so much. This is one of my favorites stories I have heard of. http://is.gd/bYUQ3 [...]
I grew up living one block away from this Fred Meyer. Used to bike and skateboard down the roof parking ramp right next to the Murray house. That Fred Meyer (along with all of its equal-age kin,) had CHARACTER. The Safeway was built while I was in high school, and it’s just /cold/. My parents still live in the same house, now across the street from Safeway. (Safeway also bought the block bounded by 68th/69th/Fremont/Klickitat, which is the block you see at the lower left corner. So the primary Safeway store is in the block of houses, while their parking lot is where Freddies used to be.)
To think, there’s only one of that era Fred Meyer store left: Hawthorne. Still has its character intact. (Burlingame is being rebuilt right now, having been torn down to bare support beams. When they tore the fascia off, you could see an old panted-on “Burlingame” in cursive on what was obviously the original fascia. But they’ve covered it back up as they put a new fascia on.)