No one wants Edith Macefield’s Ballard home – at least at this price
Mar 13, 2015, 12:37 PM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 10:16 am
Edith Macefield found herself surrounded by concrete after refusing to sell her Ballard home. The house is now covered in plywood. (Photo courtesy of CC Images, Ben Tesch)
(Photo courtesy of CC Images, Ben Tesch)
Edith Macefield’s Ballard home is the stuff of legend. The 84-year-old woman refused to sell her home nine years ago to developers for $1 million.
Ballard Blocks built its five-story shopping center up around her and then Macefield passed away. She left the house to one of the builders with the hopes that he get a good price for it.
Macefield was never interested in fighting development, she just wanted to live out her life comfortably in her home. It was her fans who thought, and still believe, in a bigger cause.
Somewhat ironically, no one bought the boarded-up old home Friday at auction.
KIRO Radio’s Rachel Belle reports people showed up on the King County Courthouse steps for the weekly foreclosure auction, hoping to snag up the house.
Three of the bidders represented companies who are regulars at the weekly auctions, according to Rachel.
The other bidders were a man who wants to open a pot shop and another guy with a music label in Los Angeles with dreams of expanding to Seattle.
Ballard Blocks, which has a plan for the space should it become available for the right price, was not on the courthouse steps.
There were also a few people with balloons because Macefield’s story reminds them of the house in the movie “Up.”
The starting bid was $216,000, but it was revealed that the home isn’t really worth that price. It turns there are two mortgages on the house worth about $500,000.
Rachel said it was apparent most bidders, with phones pinned to their ears during the auction, knew about the lien. They showed up anyway, hoping there was a chance the price would drop.
So poor Macefield’s century-old home is still just sitting there with no bidders. It goes back to the bank and no one really knows what will happen.
Rachel reports a group called Eat Ballard is hoping this will buy them more time to raise enough money to bid on the house for a future community space.
