Robert Magda: Seattle's Famous 'Up' House Being Given to Charity

Monday, August 3, 2015

Seattle's Famous 'Up' House Being Given to Charity

Spite house

The Seattle house that stayed put while big-box stores went up around it, reminding everyone of the movie “Up,” is finally preparing to float away.

After years in limbo, the home is now set to be donated to a charity that plans to move the house and preserve it, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) reports.

The “Up” house, as it’s known nationally, belonged for decades to Edith Macefield, who refused to budge when developers started turning her block into a mall. She reportedly received offers as high as $1 million.

“Money doesn’t mean anything,” Macefield told the P-I, as towering concrete walls went up around her. There’s now a Trader Joe’s on one side of the house and an LA Fitness on the other.

Hold-out homes are sometimes called “spite houses,” but Macefield appeared to have anything but spite. She indicated she enjoyed the commotion of the mall going up; she just didn’t want to move.

Macefield died in 2008, and the superintendent of the construction project, whom she had befriended, took charge of her estate as she’d requested.

Since then, the home has been sold, foreclosed, put up for auction, and now — according to real estate broker Paul Thomas’ website — is being donated “with a preference to nonprofit organizations.”

“The house really will float away, but not by air,” Thomas told the P-I. “I can’t possibly imagine a more wonderful ending for this chapter of the Edith Macefield story.”

Spite house2