Edith Masefield was living in this small cottage in the fishing village of Ballard (near Seattle) when she was offered $1 million from developers to tear down her home to make room for a Lifetime Fitness and Trader Joe's. She refused the offer, and the "mixed-usage" commercial building engulfed the rest of the block, but her house defiantly remained.
As William Yardley at the New York Times put it: Ms. Macefield’s refusal to sell her house made the news more than once. In a city knotted over its shifting identity, she seemed a familiar face, old Seattle, vulnerable but resistant to the march of gentrification and blandness.
Edith Masefield spoke English, French, German and Italian. She was the cousin of Benny Goodman, and she played the clarinet and sax. She self-published a book that was 1,138 pages long called Where Yesterday Began un
