Hawthorne Hills is an upscale neighborhood in Seattle, Washington bounded on the north by NE 65th Street, on the south and east by the Burke-Gilman Trail, and on the west by 45th Avenue NE. The majority of homes were built in the 1940s to 1950s with some of the original homes dating to the 1920s. In the last few years there has been much major remodeling and second story additions as people value it's close location to downtown Seattle, The University of Washington and access to The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge leading to Bellevue. In 2010 the average home value was $627,000, with a low of $350,000 and a high of $1,300,000. of homes sold that year. Built on a hill, many of the homes feature sweeping views of Lake Washington, the Cascade Mountains and territorial views towards downtown Seattle.
In July 1928, E. S. Simmons and Hawthorne K. Dent submitted a plat for Hawthorne Hills to the King County Auditor. In 1925 Simmons had been President of the City Planning Commis-sion. Simmons was a major developer who hired the Olmsted Brothers to plan The Uplands and The Highlands. Although the contoured streets of Hawthorne Hills resemble Olmsteds' contoured Ravenna Boulevard (contrast with Seattle's typical right-angled grids), so far there is no firm evidence the Olmsteds planned Hawthorne Hills. Dent, who held the mort-gage, is the founder of Safeco Insurance.
Around this time Ole Rasmussen Blindheim, owner of the LaVilla Dairy in Lake City, grazed his herd of cows at 40th Ave. NE & NE 55th St., near the current Metropolitan Market. This area is now the Burke-Gilman Place Playfield. When trains ran over four of his cows, Mr. Blindheim moved his herd back to Lake City in disgust. He'd had enough—neither the rail-road nor the county would reimburse him.
There were seven homes in the original development—large brick Tudor residences reminis-cent of England. In its onset, Hawthorne Hills was planned to be more upscale than Laurelhurst. One of the original homes still stands on the SW corner of NE 65th Street & Princeton Way. Initially development was slow; due to the depression the original developers went bankrupt, but by the end of the fifties, Hawthorne Hills was covered with its characteristic Cape Cods, smaller brick Tudors, and California-style brick ranch homes.
Many of the streets were named after college towns — Ann Arbor, Pullman, Stanford, etc. The center of the neighborhood is University Circle Park, with its views towards both Lake Washington and downtown Seattle, including the Space Needle.
The Princeton Street Bridge off Sand Point Way serves as the main entrance to the neighbor-hood from Sand Point Way NE. The original bridge was built in 1930. One of the oldest bridges in Seattle, it was replaced in 2002.