Leona Condominiums: Outstanding Stewardship Award Winner

May is Preservation Month, and each May, the Queen Anne Historical Society marks the occasion with our Annual Awards Celebration. The 2025 award for Outstanding Stewardship went to the owners of the Leona Condominiums, who recognize that sometimes the smallest detail can make or break the preservation of a building’s historic character.

Leona Condominium Board Member Anne Holmes, with renovation project Engineer Marta Dzheneva, accepting the Outstanding Stewardship award (source: Queen Anne Historical Society)

The Leona Condominiums are located at the northeast corner of Queen Anne Avenue N and Ward Street, fronting along Queen Anne’s famed “Counterbalance.” Known as Temperance Street prior to the turn of the 20th Century, the steep slope of Queen Anne Avenue was finally conquered in 1902 by streetcars that used an innovative system of cables and counterweights under the street. This transportation advancement coincided with a period of growth and expansion stemming from gold rush prosperity and annexations that pushed Seattle’s population from 80,671 in 1900 to 237,194 by 1910. With that growth came an increase in apartment development.

Circa 1920 image of the Leona advertising apartments for rent. (source: Queen Anne Historical Society)

The Leona was designed by V.P. von Erlich and constructed in 1909 as the Leona Apartments, which it was called until the 1930s, when it was renamed Park Ridge. The three-story, L-shaped brick building is characterized by restrained ornamentation, use of high-end materials and tripartite windows with divided transom lights. One of the building’s few distinctive design flourishes is the use of curved mullions that echo that of the cast stone arch lintels over the windows and balcony doors on the first floor.

Detail image of arched mullion. (source: Queen Anne Historical Society)

Originally built as middle-class apartments, the building was acquired by Queen Anne resident and developer Maria Barrientos in 2006. Barrientos sought historic landmark designation for the building, which was granted that same year. Her subsequent development included the addition of sympathetically designed modern units north of the original building and penthouse units, resulting in a total of 18 homes. Barrientos also restored the historic name, adapting it to the Leona Condominiums, although the 1909 building still bears the name Park Ridge below the cornice on the Queen Anne Avenue façade.

Today’s Leona Condominiums showing the modern addition on the left with a recessed connector to the historic building. (source: Redfin.com)

By 2022 the historic portion of the building needed extensive repairs due to water intrusion. The Leona owners undertook a project to stabilize the façade and restore the cast stone lintels and Juliette balconies. A survey of the historic windows and doors revealed that they were beyond repair and would need to be replaced. The owners were presented with options that included replacing the curved window mullions with flat ones to save on the considerable cost of incorporating the design detail. The Queen Anne Historical Society is delighted that the Leona condominium owners recognized the importance of retaining the architect’s intent and went the extra mile to replicate the curved mullion with the replacement windows.  

We are grateful that the successful completion of this project in 2024 will allow this highly visible Queen Anne historic landmark to be preserved well into the future, with its most distinctive character defining feature intact.

Birdseye view of the Leona Condominiums as they appear today. (source: Redfin.com)