Design Build — Madison Park, Seattle
Building in
Madison Park is one of the few Seattle neighborhoods where we have direct project experience rather than general familiarity. Two of our named custom homes — Madison Park Passive and Madison Park Urban — sit within blocks of each other here, and both taught us things about the neighborhood's specific building conditions that only come from having actually built in it.
Madison Park lots near the water face Lake Washington shoreline jurisdiction, which brings setback requirements and view protection rules that materially affect what can be built and where. The Madison Park Passive project required careful massing decisions specifically to comply with these overlays while still achieving the indoor-outdoor kitchen connection the clients wanted — a folding wall opening to a cedar-clad outdoor kitchen and the lake view beyond. That kind of design solution only works when the regulatory constraints are understood before the first sketch, not discovered during permit review.
The Madison Park Urban project sits further from the water, on a corner lot, and took a different design risk — a genuinely contemporary architectural statement in a neighborhood that skews more traditional. Getting that approved required working the design review process carefully, understanding exactly what the review board weighs and why. We moved through it faster than a comparable project usually does because the pre-application homework was done thoroughly rather than skipped to save time.
Madison Park's older housing stock — much of it from the early-to-mid 20th century — also comes up frequently in our remodel conversations here. Foundations, knob-and-tube wiring remnants, and cast-iron plumbing from multiple renovation eras are common finds once walls open. We build realistic contingencies into Madison Park remodel bids because we've already seen what's usually behind the walls.
Madison Park's stormwater requirements from Seattle Public Utilities kick in at lower impervious-surface thresholds than many other Seattle neighborhoods because of the lake proximity. We incorporate green stormwater infrastructure into site design from the start rather than retrofitting it after permit review flags it.
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