Edith Macefield’s Ballard house is foreclosed, going up for auction

In 2006, Seattle’s 84-year-old Edith Macefield made international headlines when she refused to sell her Ballard home to developers. They offered her $1 million, but she refused to budge, so they built a block-long, five-story shopping center called Ballard Blocks around her little 108-year-old house.

Edith’s chutzpah resonated with people around the globe; Disney tied balloons to the house to promote the Pixar film “Up,” and about 25 locals got tattoos of the house.

“Just something about sticking to your guns and this is my home and I’m not going anywhere. I love that. She was unmoved by money because it was her home. That’s what resonated with a lot of us in the community,” says Ballard’s Michael Stephens, who has the house tattooed on her forearm.

The interesting thing is, Edith wasn’t fighting against new development. She was just old and tired and a million dollars didn’t mean much to her.

“Everybody else wants to think that she was standing up against the man, not letting him take over. Well, that wasn’t the case,” says Barry Martin. “Really, she liked living there, she lived there long enough, she was comfortable. But people want it to be more than that.”

Barry Martin was superintendent on the Ballard Blocks project and he became Edith’s full-time caretaker in her final years. Edith left her house to Barry and before she passed away in 2008 she told him over and over to sell it for the best price he could get. In 2009, Barry was literally about to sell the property to the Ballard Blocks developer when he got a call from Greg Pinneo, another interested buyer.

“They were supposed to pick me up at 11,” Barry says. “He called me at six minutes after 11 and I told him, ‘I’m going to make a deal with them.’ He says, ‘Well, they’re late.’ And I said, ‘Yes, they are.’ So then, all of a sudden, he threw an offer out there and his offer was a little bit more than what I had in my head that I thought it was worth.”

So he sold to Greg Pinneo, a real estate entrepreneur.

“I said, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ And he said, ‘Does it matter?’ And I said, ‘Not really.’ Because Edith didn’t really want to have a memorial.”

But Greg, and a partner from Portland, had big plans for the house. They were going to restore it and turn it into a vacation rental called Credo Square. But now we’ve learned that Greg owes nearly $186,000 on the property. He’s filed for bankruptcy, the house has been foreclosed and it’s going up for auction on March 13th. A quick Internet search reveals that Greg has a bit of a nefarious past: in 1997 he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, for a real-estate-financing scheme, and spent six months in prison. His real estate license was revoked.

Meanwhile, Edith’s house is in shambles.

“It’s basically kind of a shack in a ditch,” says Michael. “It’s such a bummer because there were so many ideas about what to do with it. But nothing really came about and now it’s going up for auction, which is heartbreaking. Her story is amazing and I think that that will resonate for a very long time. But it’s now just kind of the knife in the heart that the house is potentially going away.”

I asked Barry if he regrets selling to Greg.

“No. No, I mean, because Edith didn’t care. She said in 20 years they’ll be tearing this whole complex down and building something new. She said that’s just how it is. As long as I know that she wouldn’t care, it doesn’t really bother me.”

But Barry is bothered about the state of Edith’s house. Greg gutted it and took the front off. It’s rotting plywood behind a chain link fence.

Until the auction, which will be held on the steps of the King County Administration Building, no one knows who might bid on the house. When I spoke with Ballard Blocks, the property manager said it was such a legal mess that they may no longer be interested. In theory, members of the Ballard community would love to save it, but no one has the money or has started a fundraising campaign. But no matter what happens, Edith’s spirit will be kept alive.

“I still have all of her books. I think I still have all of her records,” says Barry.

And in 2013 Michael co-founded Ballard’s Macefield Music Festival.

“Seattle is changing so much, all the time,” says Michael. “I’ve heard my friends, and I’m sure you’ve heard your friends, lamenting about how things used to be. So we created this festival, and named it after her, to kind of keep things in that vein. Community oriented. And yes, there is still the old spirit of Seattle all over the place, you just have to know where to look for it.”