SEATTLE — The famous Ballard home sandwiched between commercial buildings because its now-deceased owner refused to sell went to auction Friday morning, but there were no takers.
It's the house that many compared to the animated movie "Up," because the elderly woman who owned it refused to sell to developers.
Edith Macefield even refused $1 million offer to sell her house, so the developer went ahead with the project anyway.
When she died in 2008, Macefield gave the house to the foreman of the building construction project, who had befriended her and even took her to doctor appointments as her health deteriorated.
The foreman, Barry Martin, sold the house to an Edmonds real estate investor who planned to lift the house and create an open space beneath it to honor Macefield's stubbornness.
But the project never materialized and the home has $300,000 in outstanding liens. It went up for sale in a foreclosure auction Friday morning, but it failed to sell and will go back to the bank.
Last month, KIRO 7 reporter Jeff Dubois tracked down Martin and asked him what Macefield would have thought about the house being sold.
Martin said she wouldn’t have been mad.
"She didn't really care about what happened with the house after she was gone. She said 20 years from now they’ll tear (a nearby commercial) building down it will be something new,” said Martin.
Martin thought someone might come forward to try to save the house before it went to auction.
The adjacent building was designed to expand onto the home’s property if the house was ever removed, but there's no indication whether that will happen.
KIRO
