Queen Anne

Queen Anne is one of the higher-end, full service, residential nabes in the Downtownvicinity. It’s where the trendy folks from Capitol Hill, Fremont, and the like go to grow a little older.

In the process they buy a little nicer of things and shop at a little smaller of botiques and dine at little finer of restaurants. This neighborhood offers all those things.

It’s definitely a comfortable, and maybe even a little posh, place to settle down and still be near downtown.

Queen Anne Hill is a charming neighborhood residing on the highest hill in Seattle. The neighborhood was named for the Queen Anne architectural style of its early Victorian mansions. Minutes from downtown, Seattle’s public transportation allows an easy commute. Parking is also very convenient. Queen Anne is a family friendly residential neighborhood with four of Seattle’s Public Schools nearby. Maintaining the name of the Emerald City, Queen Anne owns 25 delightful parks. Kerry Park, located on Highland Drive, has the finest view of Seattle with the city’s skyline, Elliot Bay, and the beautiful Mount Rainier. The park attracts many photographers for fun photo ops. Upper Queen Anne has a variety of chic boutiques, unique coffee shops, many fabulous restaurants, and an impressive selection of grocery options. Residents of Upper Queen Anne range from college students and young professionals to the former governor of Washington, Gary Locke.

Queen Anne crawls up the north hill, leaving behind Belltown and Lower Queen Anneto the south and South Lake Union and Capitol Hill to the east. Walking through this neighborhood is a drastic change in demographic if you’re coming from caphill, downtown or the University District. Here you’ll find the coffee shops filled less with hipsters, but a more refined prototype of hipsters. They’re done being exclusive, having maybe graduated from a four year university, started looking for stable jobs or perhaps are gearing up for a child, and a nice neighborhood to raise it in. That said, it’s still a fashionable neighborhood but is getting to be on the boarder of Seattle’s trendy boundaries.
Pros
– Cleaner and more homely with a stronger and very active
community.
– Large local art community
– Dotted with great local businesses
– Great view of the downtown area and Seattle Center.
– Several Co-Op grocery stores and other local markets
– Great night life for a range of age groups
– Excellent public transportation.

Cons
– A bit less thrifty than bordering nabes
– If you’re walking you’d better plan on walking up and down
some pretty epic hills. Or else have a bus pass
– Terrible traffic, especially when the Staples Center is having
an event.
– Terrible parking at nearly all times of the day.

Christopher M.

If you’re legs are aching, you’re horribly sweaty, or your transmission is about to fail, you’ve probably climbed up Queen Anne. You may have heard this neighborhood mentioned in the following sentence, “Well, we can’t all live in Queen Anne.” I hope you can stand that attitude, because that is exactly the kinds of things you’ll hear when people find out you live there.

Determining whether this is the place for you depends on what demographic you fit in, and to help with this, here are some questions. Do you work at Microsoft? Are you a dentist? Do you like ice cream trucks that sell Italian ice cream? Are you an executive at Microsoft? Do you like a neighborhood that literally and figuratively looks down on the rest of Seattle? Are you a yuppie who is disdainful of other yuppies? If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, you are indeed a keen test taker.

Anchoring this neighborhood is Queen Anne Avenue, which features grocery stores, high end boutiques, toy stores, bakeries, cafes, shishi restaurants, and an assortment of shops which create needs the residents didn’t realize they had. It’s a nice area.

Lined by narrow winding streets, the primary reason to move here is if you’re buying a house and plan to raise kids. It is a remarkably safe neighborhood, with a low amount of traffic, and plenty of schools and parks. Local legend says that if you listen very carefully at night, you can just hear another person accidentally setting off their house alarm.

This is not to say outsiders aren’t welcome, or should avoid the area. Between the Five Spot diner (sit at the bar to avoid lines), A & J Meats and Seafood, and Via Tribunali, you are getting some of the best diner food, cuts of meat, and pizza in Seattle.

The houses here, if you are looking, are quite beautiful (though a little close together), and many have a full or partial view of the water. There is one house which is literally an entire block, with
surrounding trees and bushes so high that its residents are never seen. Some people say – though I am not one to spread rumors – that a rich person lives there.

Queen Anne is sort of the upscale hip yuppie version of settling down. By moving here you will feel successful, but you won’t feel old, which is the key to the neighborhood. It is suburbia without the requisite suburban mall culture, a place to know you’ve made it, without having moved past it. If you manage to make it up the hill (economically speaking), don’t worry about what people think; if they knew anything, they’d be living there.

monthtomonth

Queen Anne
For East Coast transplants, this is the Park Slope, Brooklyn of Seattle. You’re a parent now but not ready to concede to the ‘burbs. You want to be in the city but you want upscale neighbors and good schools. The top of Queen Anne has lots of little restaurants and shops and is perfect for pushing a stroller around. Queen Anne is easily accessible to downtown Seattle and offers some of the best views around (the faux Frasier apartment view is allegedly from up here). Queen Anne is not for the light of pocketbook (remember, you want upscale neighbors – ya gotta pay for that). Getting to the freeways sucks, but that’s okay because you work downtown and your spouse probably stays home with the kids. Or, you both work and since your au pair lives with you, the freeways aren’t really an issue. Aside from the spectacular views from Kerry Park, this is a locals’ nabe.

D.

A beautiful view from many of the luxurious homes perched on this Seattle hill, as well as from the very few apartment buildings – Queen Anne is a beautiful place to live, if you can afford it. Like an expensive clothing label, Queen Anne is made up of many of the same elements of other Seattle burbs, good schools, a few parks, a central Community Center, plus some great restaurants and at least 3 coffee shops with 2 blocks of each other – a staple in Seattle but people choose to live here often due to the name of the neighborhood and all that implies…mmm..pass the caviar Darlin’! Mixed sparsly in with the Queen Anne folk, are a few students from Seattle Pacific at the base of this hill, but very few can afford to go more than a block or two up the hill…too…much…money…must…save…for…keggar….
A variety of yummy restaurants hold spots along the main drag, from Thai to Hawaiian to an award-winning breakfast hangout, as well as three grocery stores, a pet food store and even a butcher. Queen Anne is a safe neighborhood with low crime rates and many neighborhood watches in place. Playgrounds abound and walking to your local destinations is easy with all streets having sidewalks. Public buses run frequently and you are less than 5 minutes from downtown. If you can afford it, and it is important to you what the guy in the next cubicle thinks about where you live, Queen Anne may just be the nighborhood for you, Darlin’!

Melissa R.