2320 Rucker Ave
National Register of Historic Places
The Roland Hartley Mansion, built in 1910 and 1911 at 2320 Rucker was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 in recognition of its architectural significance and its connection with Roland Hill Hartley, a leading Everett lumber baron, Everett city mayor (1910-1911), state legislator (1915-1916) and two term Washington state governor (1925-1933).
The Hartley family numbered five: Roland, Nina and their three children Edward, David and Mary. Roland described Nina as his “home loving wife”. The lot on which the house was built had previously been a pasture where Edward had kept his horse.
Although the house is technically two and a half stories, its raised basement and full attic gave it four levels of living space. The west side overlooked the Everett waterfront. Built with balloon framing, the house is Neo Classical in style and has a poured concrete foundation, wood siding, a hip roof with gabled dormers projecting from each plane of the roof. A two-story portico is supported by Corinthian columns.
Only slight changes have been made over time to the house’s exterior but interior modifications have been extensive, adapting it for use as a nursing home and most recently a neurological center. Two unusual features that remain are an early intercom system and a turntable in the garage so that Hartley never had to back his Pierce Arrow into the street.
Hartley’s career began in the Minnesota lumber camps. He came west with lumberman and ex-Minnesota governor David Clough whose daughter Nina became Roland’s wife. In Everett, Clough and Hartley co-owned the Clough-Hartley Mill, the largest producer of shingles in the world.
Hartleys lived in the mansion into the 1950s. During those decades they weathered the booms and busts of a fluctuating lumber economy, labor unrest, a flu pandemic, World War I and World War II. Both sons Edward and David served in the U. S. Army during World War I, Edward as a 2nd Lieutenant in France where he survived some of the most brutal battles of the war. David was not sent to the European front. Roland joined the Washington National Guard at age 53 and was in New Jersey ready to be shipped overseas in late October of 1918 when the war ended. David, Edward and Roland Hartley are all included in William Mason’s 1934 book Snohomish County in the War, the soldiers, sailors, marines and patriotic civilians of Snohomish County. A good singer, Edward’s wife Mary Bell Hartley performed at military posts on the home front.
The Hartley Mansion was vacant for a time and then was used as a nursing home. Dr. Sanford Wright purchased the mansion for his offices as a neurological surgeon in 1983, spending a year restoring its elegance. Dr. Wright’s official public opening of the mansion brought up favorite Hartley family stories. Neil Anderson, grandson of Edward Hartley, recalls a Halloween story told to him and his mother Jeanne Hartley Anderson. One man told of visiting the mansion one Halloween as a trick or treater. Roland met kids at the door, invited them in, sat them down at a table and asked each to state his or her life goals. Each kid then received a bottle of Coca Cola.
Hartley’s Pierce Arrow was the soure of other stories. While serving in Olympia, Roland would return on Sundays and often gave neighborhood kids a ride in his auto, some remembering that he enjoyed driving his auto past churches on Sunday mornings and honking his “Ooga Ooga” horn.
Dr. Sanford Wright has been a longtime supporter of musical arts and in recent years, with a Steinway B grand piano taking center stage, the Hartley Mansion has been a venue for small music gatherings, chamber music concerts and private recitals.
For vintage photos of the Hartley mansion and nearby homes, please see the Bayside walking tour.
